


Back Door - The Forget-Me Box

by pbmolecules



Series: Family Business, Kripke Manor [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curse Boxes, Cursed Object, Dad!Dean, Dad!Sam, Funny, Hunt Gone Wrong, Kripke Manor, Light-Hearted, M/M, Mayhem, Memory Loss, Rufus is a grump :), Wedding business, dad!Cas, dad!gabe, established Destiel, established sabriel, sex and smut, similar to Bad Day at Black Rock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-02 21:53:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18819742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pbmolecules/pseuds/pbmolecules
Summary: Kripke Manor was a thriving wedding business from the front, and an active hunter haven from the back.  It’s November 2024 and the Winchesters are used to surprises stumbling through the back door.  Will everything they know, and love disappear at the arrival of one small package through the front door?





	1. Rich Men’s Things

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Supernatural. If I did, this shit would be so canon they would have to move it to HBO :)
> 
> OH YEAH! WE’RE BACK AT KRIPKE MANOR!!!! I’m gonna start this right off with a HUGE thank you to all of you who have left comments asking for more of this verse! You guys are the jelly to my peanut butter!!!
> 
> *Excited, happy squeal!* 
> 
> You must read Family Business before reading this little fic. 
> 
> Are you ready? I’m so ready! I hope you all enjoy this thrilling two days with the Winchesters at Kripke Manor :)

Chapter 1:  Rich Men’s Things  
   
   
It was Fall in Danville, Virginia.  The leaves were changing colors and the air had finally lost its weight of humidity.  It was a Tuesday night and though there were many lights on in Kripke Manor, the grounds were quiet.    
   
Kripke Manor was a thriving business from the front and an active hunter haven from the back.  Bela had been studying the grounds for three days now.  She had been debating how to get in.  She could tour it as a potential bride, or she could pose as a hunter.  Both had their difficulties.  Jody, who frequented the place at any given time, would recognize her immediately.  Simply slipping inside was not an option at the moment.  The security system was too tight, including the presence of two rather large dogs.  
   
Her cunning observations also revealed the fact that the manor never seemed to be empty.  Quite inconvenient all around.    
   
She slid down from her vantage point along the fence, which was lined so thickly with trees that it was nearly impossible to see inside.  Nearly.  
   
She loaded her camera and scope into the car, taking off into town.  She had studied what she could find on the members of the household.  She was looking for a way to get inside.  But there seemed to be little to work with.  The occupants were either married, dating, or too old to be a true potential for a hook-up to get inside.  But she was determined.  And she had yet to case a location and not get in.    
   
She could only imagine what items she could steal, both magical and non-magical.  According to her resource, there was a cache of weapons, antiques, and rarer items that some of her more unsavory clients would pay a lot of money for.  It was worth thinking it through.  
   
Perhaps it was time to use one of her tried and true (and dangerous) methods.  
   
Nothing was impenetrable.  
   
Kripke Manor would be no different.  
   
This was just going to require some ingenuity on her part.  She smirked in her rearview mirror.  She had plenty of that.  
   
   
******************************************************************  
   
   
Dean knelt on the floor in their living room with two jackets.  
   
“Daddy,” Jack toddled over, wrapping his arms around Dean’s neck.  
   
“Hey, Jack!  Time to get your coat on.  Grandma’s ready to go to the zoo.”  
   
Jack squealed, making Dean wince from the sound and set him back on his feet.  He helped fish his busy little arms into the red jacket.  “Where are your shoes, dude?  They were just on!”  
   
Jack spun away across the floor, only thoughts of the zoo on his little mind.  
   
“Eric.  Come on.”  
   
“He’s...” Cas came into the room carrying Eric on his hip, a slight frown on his face, “sticky.  How does he get so sticky?”  
   
Dean chuckled.  “I don’t know.  Did Gabe give him candy again?”  
   
Cas huffed, sitting Eric on his feet.  “His sleeves got wet when I washed his hands, but Ellen’s already downstairs waiting.”  
   
“He’ll be fine,” Dean grinned, ruffling Eric’s thick brown hair.  “Builds character.”  
   
Cas gave Dean an incredulous look.  “He’s two!”  
   
“He’ll be three soon.  And then he’ll be twelve.  Gotta start sometime.”  
   
Cas shook his head, not taking Dean’s gruff demeanor to mean anything other than they were both exhausted.  
   
“Have you seen Jack’s shoes?” Dean went on, heading out of the living room.  
   
Cas wrangled Eric into his blue coat.  “No.”  He laughed when Eric went to great strides to bend over, touching a finger to his little boot.    
   
“Shoe.”  
   
“Very good!” Cas grinned.  “Eric has his shoes on.  He’s a good boy.  Jack, where are your shoes?  Jack?”  
   
Cas glanced around, getting to his feet.  Jack was quick.  He saw Buddy staring out the living room door and swept Eric up onto his hip again.  
   
“Zoo!” Eric clapped.  
   
“Yes,” Cas said absently, circumnavigating Buddy to edge into the hall and taking Jack by the hand.  
   
“No,” Jack whined, pulling his hand away.  
   
“Jack,” Cas warned, kneeling and stopping him from trying to yank away.  He stared at his more-trying son and waited for him to comply.  
   
Jack took his hand and he met Dean at the end of the hall.    
   
“Found ‘em.”  Dean scooped Jack up.  “Time for shoes, Jack.”  
   
“Daaaaaddy,” he whined.  
   
“I don’t understand whining.”  
   
Jack growled as Dean sat him on a table in the hall.  
   
“Jack,” Cas sighed.  “No growling either.”  
   
“I don wike shoes.” Jack said, stumbling with each word.  
   
Cas and Dean both grinned.  Jack truly hated shoes.  But now that it was fall, he was going to have to get over it.    
   
“My dapper men!” Gabe called, coming around the corner.    
   
“Gacie!” Both boys called, seeing their cousin, Grace.  She grinned at them, a thumb in her mouth, per usual.  
   
“Want me to take everyone down to Ellen and Bobby?” Gabe asked.  
   
“You’re a saint,” Dean sighed, tying the second shoe for the third time this morning.  He stood Jack on the table to be closer to his height.  “Gimme a kiss,” he grinned.  
   
Jack hugged him, starting to step away.  Dean stopped him, getting his eye contact before saying, “You gonna be a good boy?”  
   
Jack nodded his head.  
   
Dean sat him on the floor where he took Gabe’s hand.  
   
Cas gave Eric a quick kiss on the cheek, letting Dean get one as well before adding him to Gabe’s herd.    
   
“Love you boys,” Cas added, snagging Jack for a quick kiss as well.  
   
“Love you, Daddy,” they both chimed like angels.  
   
“God, you’re cute, you know that, right?” Dean chuckled, looking at both boys, who nodded and grinned.  “Be good!”  
   
“Come on,” Gabe coaxed, herding them all toward the stairs.  
   
Cas shook his head.  It would take them a solid ten minutes to get down all the stairs, but Gabe still refused to use the elevator.  Oh well, the kids would be that much more worn out for Ellen and Bobby.    
   
Dean shut the door to their section of the house.  He leaned against it, his head thudding back.  “I do love them.”  
   
Cas chuckled, picking up five toys from the hallway.  “I know you do.  So do they.”  
   
Dean grinned, picked up two more toys and followed Cas into the boys’ room to put them in the toy box.  
   
“I hope Jack doesn’t throw any fits,” Dean fretted, looking out the window.  
   
Cas sighed.  “I hope so too.  He’s been pretty good lately.  Most of his terrible-twos are over.”  
   
“I can’t believe they’ll be three soon.”  
   
“Almost twelve,” Cas teased back.  
   
Dean and Cas were in the midst of a very busy phase of life in general.  The boys woke early, took two very short naps, and didn’t sleep until nine at night, leaving them little time for just each other these days.  They were currently coming off the heaviest time of the year for weddings, and they were overdue for both family time and alone time.  
   
“The Page/Palmer wedding party will be here soon,” Cas said, slipping his arms around Dean from behind, watching out the window.  
   
“Okay.  I’m headed to pick up that order of linens.  I’ll see you around lunch time.”  He turned, kissing Cas warmly.  
   
“Or we could hide in our room for the rest of the day,” Cas  said low, grinning into his husband’s neck.  
   
“Mm, tempting.”  Dean kissed him a little harder.    
   
Cas laughed, pulling away.  “I really gotta go.”  
   
“No you don’t,” Dean clung harder to his shirt as he turned, getting an arm around him.  
   
“Dean!” Cas warned, trying to step back.  “They’ll be here any minute!”  Cas slipped Dean’s grip, laughed and dodged out of the room toward the door.    
   
In the hallway, Dean caught him around the waist, still laughing.  “Five minutes! Give me five minutes,” Dean giggled into Cas’ ear from over his shoulder.  His mouth quickly went to Cas’ neck and Cas was a goner.  
   
Cas twisted under his grip, his hands already reaching for Dean.  “I’ll give you fifteen.  Sam can get them started.”  
   
Once their mouths came together, there was no stopping them.  Dean drug Cas by the belt toward their bedroom, the pair only laughing when their mouths weren’t busy.  
   
   
*************************************************  
   
   
Sam smirked at the message on his phone.  It was misspelled and barely made sense.  “Looks like someone is having a good morning.”  
   
Gabe shut the back door, seeing Ellen, Bobby, and all three kids pull off for a day away from the manor.  He took a seat at the table in the reference room.  “Better not be my brother.”  
   
Sam chuckled, texting back that he would handle the Page/Palmer party until Cas was presentable.  
   
Gabe scoffed.  “They’re ridiculous.”  
   
Sam could only laugh as he poured himself a second cup of coffee.  
   
Krissy turned from her laptop, which was just booting up for the day.  High school online had gone really well for her.  So well, that she was in her third year of college online.  “Will they be down soon?  Dean said he would help me with my sociology project today.”  
   
“I’m sure he’ll be down by nine.” He glanced back at Gabe’s smirk.  “Or nine thirty,” he added, ducking from any more explanation by heading toward the front of the manor.  
   
Gabe laughed, patting Krissy on the shoulder as she looked confused.  “Sociology project, huh?  So, I gotta ask, what does Dean know about people that I don’t?”  
   
Krissy arched an eyebrow.  “Um...”  
   
“Where exactly is he taking you for this supposed assignment?”  
   
“The library?” She grinned weakly.    
   
Gabe pursed his lips in disbelief.    
   
“Ok, the liquor store.”  She sagged in her chair.  
   
“Wow.  You’ve been 21 for what, twelve hours?” Gabe shook his head.  
   
“Ugh!” Krissy blushed.  “I’ve never been in one and I want to go!  Dean said he wanted to be the first to take me!”  She laughed, hating that Gabe caught onto her so easily.  
   
Gabe nodded.  “Can’t trick an old trickster, Krissy!  They all said, ‘are you sure Gabe can handle being a dad?’  And here I am!  Killin’ it!”  
   
Krissy grinned, resting her chin on her fist.  “You gonna tell my dad?”  
   
“What?  I’m not a snitch!  I don’t give a shit what you and Dean do.  You get all A’s for God’s sake.  Live a little.  Want me to drop you off downtown?”  
   
Krissy laughed, throwing her napkin at him.    
   
He dodged it neatly.  “Bar? Nearest crack-house?”  
   
“Gabe!  Shut up!”  She laughed.  
   
He dodged out of the room, heading for the front of the manor to join Sam.  
   
Whistling as he passed through the secure door, now entering the hall of the first-floor wing, he saw Sam with the bride-to-be.  He smiled warmly at her, stepping aside so Sam could point them to the rooms where she and her girls could get ready for their big day.  
   
He followed the hall until he came into the wide foyer with its white marble floors and bustling activity.  
   
“Joshua!  Good morning!”  He waved at his favorite florist, an older black man with graying hair that was getting whiter every year.    
   
“Morning, Mr. Winchester!  Big wedding today.”  
   
“And a good one,” Gabe grinned, thinking of the bride and groom.  “They’re gonna go far.”  
   
Joshua gave him a kind grin with a little sparkle in his eye.  “I hope so.”  
   
He went into the office to grab the day’s to-do list.  He checked Joshua’s delivery off and headed out to the foyer again.  Sam joined him, looking quite handsome in his suit.  This wedding was a big one.  The largest they’d hosted yet.  And it was also very formal, hence all of them in suits for the day.  
   
“Here,” Sam handed him a small wooden box made of light stained wood with a bright red flower on the lid.  
   
“What’s this?” Gabe asked, opening it.  
   
“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged, looking at it curiously.  “I thought I was supposed to give it to you.”  
   
“For what?” Gabe asked, looking inside of it.  Another red flower decorated the inside bottom of the box.  It looked like it had been a real flower that had been pressed into the wood.  
   
“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged.  
   
“Hi, Sam!”  
   
Both men looked up as the mother of the bride-to-be walked in.    
   
“Is Jenny here already?  I saw her car.”  
   
“Yep!” Sam grinned.  “Follow me, I’ll show you where the girls are.”  
   
Gabe nodded to the mom with a grin, tucking the box into his jacket pocket.  He’d figure it out later.  He heard a clatter from the kitchen and rolled his eyes, heading that way.  “Kevin!  If that was you, you’re fired!”  
   
   
**********************************************************  
   
   
Rufus cleared his throat, pointedly ignoring the world while he finished reading the morning paper.  The paper paper.  Not some dumb app or message on a link or whatever people did these days.  He read the damn paper.  He snapped it again, finding his place.  
   
Loki sniffed long and just as pointedly, shoving his head against the man’s thigh hard enough to push him over half a foot.  
   
“Damn!”  He glared down at the beast.  “Who died and made you king?”  
   
The lion yawned wide and panted.  
   
“Now, let me finish my damn paper!”  
   
Loki looked toward him and licked his lips.  He might be one of the few people who hung out with Loki almost daily, but he knew very well a lion was lion was a lion.  Even if he was old and decrepit.  And blind.  “My bad!  You want the paper?”  
   
Loki turned, making Rufus turn to see Rumsfeld come into the arena.    
   
“You’re late, old man,” Rufus frowned.    
   
“Rumsfeld was chasin’ squirrels away from the gazebo,” Charlie explained.  “He’s done now.”  
   
Loki eased off the rocks and met the dog halfway across the arena.  Crazy dog.  Crazy lion.  Crazy rich people for buyin’ a damn lion.  Hell, his ass was just as crazy, hangin’ out with lions!  “How was your day?” He muttered to himself in fake conversation.  “Oh, just fine, just sittin’ around with a jungle cat.  You?”  
   
“Are you talking to yourself?” Charlie giggled, giving him that little grin she was good at.  
   
“Nobody else will listen!” He bantered.  “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be strollin’ around with a lion.  Would we?”  
   
“Nope,” Charlie laughed.  “Are you still reading the snail news?”  
   
“Uhhh!” He flailed his paper out as the two left the arena.  “This is the real news!”  
   
“That’s all from yesterday,” Charlie laughed, holding up her phone.  “This news is from ten minutes ago!”  
   
“But it’s not real, Charlie!  It ain’t real.”  He shook his head.  “Not until it makes it to print!”  
   
“That so?” Charlie giggled, always so damn amused with him.  
   
“That’s so.”  He tossed an arm around her as they headed toward the truck.  The pair had taken on a side job that was keeping them busy.  
   
“Dorothy still in Texas working on that hotel pool?”  Rufus asked.  
   
“Yep.  And let me tell you, when she gets back, she and I are going on vacation.  For the whole winter.”  
   
“What the hell will I do without my electrician all winter?” Rufus teased.    
   
“Quit working all the damn time.  Hang out with your best friends,” Charlie suggested.  
   
“Loki and Rum will be just fine if I’m out workin’.”  
   
Charlie giggled.  Rufus and Bobby spent plenty of their down time with Ellen at the Roadhouse.  The old buzzard could use some relaxation in his life.  And Charlie could really use her damn wife back.  
   
Gabe met them at the barn entrance as he was headed out to feed Loki.  “Morning,” Gabe called.  
   
“Morning!” They both waved back.  
   
Gabe trotted up to them.  “Hey, I gotta get Loki his breakfast before the musicians arrive for the wedding, but is this yours?”  He handed Charlie the box.  
   
She took it and opened it.  “No.  It’s pretty though.”  
   
Rufus took it.  “What is that?”  He smelled it, a slight floral scent mixed with the cedar wood it was made from.  He handed it back to Gabe.  “Smells good.”  
   
Gabe smelled it, giving him an odd look.  “You smell everything people hand you?”  
   
“Damn right.”  He stared back at Gabe, getting the laugh he knew he would.  
   
They went to the truck, letting Gabe get back to his chores.  
   
   
***************************************************************  
   
   
Cas kissed Dean goodbye in the office.  They were both running late now and had to hurry.  Dean disappeared to the back of the house to get Krissy and take her on the linen run.  She was doing well earning a degree in criminal justice.  Her dad, Lee, came and went frequently, between hunts.  They had all encouraged her to stay out of hunting, but she seemed adamant, at this point, to become a cop like Jody.  And to hunt, like Jody.  He couldn’t blame her for seeing Jody as quite the role model.  She was the best hunter around.  
   
Cas pulled the clipboard with today’s to-do list on it.  The florist had already been, and the wedding cake had been dropped off.  The bride and her family and her crew were being taken care of by Patience and Sam.  He headed to the ballroom to see that the musician’s places were set and ready.  After checking that off the list, he headed to the kitchen to check on tonight’s meal.  Buddy stayed with him throughout his travels.    
   
“It’s in the dishwasher,” Kevin was explaining to their head chef, dashing away to get something.  
   
“How are things going?” He asked.  
   
“Good,” the man nodded.  
   
“It smells delicious,” Cas grinned.  
   
“Thank you, sir,” the man took the pot Kevin handed him, giving Cas a polite nod before heading to an oven with it.  
   
Kevin stopped, giving Cas a frazzled look.  “Are we still on for the Latin lesson Monday night?”  
   
“We are,” Cas nodded.  He had been tutoring Kevin in Latin to help him with his class.  The kid was a political science major, insisting he needed three languages under his belt to get anywhere.  Kevin was practically family since he got snagged into a hunter mishap with an Enochian tablet that he came across in the library.  Castiel was shocked with his ability to translate, so he was tutoring him in Latin, insisting it would improve his Spanish, German, and French.  
   
He passed through the hectic kitchen, making his way back to his office when he ran into Gabe in the foyer.  
   
“Hey.”  
   
“Hey,” Gabe answered, looking distracted.  “Is this yours?”  He handed Cas a small wooden box with a flower on the lid.  He took it, turning it over.    
   
“No.  Why?”  
   
Gabe frowned at the little thing.  “I don’t know who the hell to give it to.”  
   
Cas looked at it again.  “Where’d you get it?”  
   
Gabe stared at him for a second.  “I don’t know.  I found it.”  He frowned harder.  “Maybe Sam gave it to me.”  
   
“It’s not mine.  But I’m sure someone will want it back.”  He opened it, studying the lovely flower.    
   
“Can you take it?” Gabe asked, looking at it with worry.  
   
“Sure.  I’ll find its owner.  Are you okay?”  
   
“Yeah.”  Gabe shook his head slightly.  “I forget what I was gonna go do.”  
   
Cas huffed a laugh.  “Check the list.  The photographer should be here soon.”  
   
Gabe nodded.  “I’ll...check the gazebo to make sure it’s clean.”  
   
Cas nodded, tucking the little box into his jacket pocket.  He really should find the owner of the box.  Surely they wanted it back.  
   
Since everything was running smoothly, he headed out the back door with Gabe.  Buddy ran ahead, sniffing around the gazebo as Cas grabbed a broom, sweeping a few stray leaves off the steps.  
   
“I got the lights turned on already,” Benny called, crossing the lawn toward them.  “I was just about to sweep.”  
   
“Looks great,” Cas called back, handing him the broom.  Even though it was bright and clear out, the strings of twinkling lights gave the gazebo a pretty glow.  
   
Benny tipped his hat in appreciation to the compliment.  He and Bobby kept the grounds looking beautiful all year long.  
   
“I’m takin’ these to the shed,” he said, gesturing with the rake and broom.  “Wanna see the new tractor they delivered yesterday?”  
   
“Sure,” Cas nodded.  
   
“I’m going back in,” Gabe frowned.  “It’s getting cold.  I’ll, uh, check the list to see what’s next.”  
   
Cas nodded, following Benny around the steps to the veranda and outside entrance of the ballroom.  When they got to the driveway, Cas stopped as Dean pulled up beside him, rolling his window down.  
   
“Hey, need anything while I’m out?”  
   
Cas sighed.  “Diapers.  And cheerios.”  
   
Dean grinned.  They could hardly keep themselves stocked in either one.  
   
A nagging thought made Cas pull the little box from his suit jacket.  “Hey, is this yours?  Or Krissy’s?”  
   
Dean took the box, turning it over in his hands.  “Never seen it before.”  He opened the lid, looking inside.  Curious, he rubbed a finger along the flower embossed in the wood.  “It’s not mine...but you should figure out who it belongs to.”  He closed the lid and held it up to show Krissy.  
   
Distracted with texting on her phone, Dean sat it on her screen, blocking her conversation.  She took the box with a curious look.  She too opened it and smelled it.  “It’s not mine,” she said.  “You should take it,” she frowned, giving it back to Dean.  
   
Dean stared at it for a moment, then handed it back to Cas.  “You should check with Sam.  Or Gabe.  Maybe it’s theirs.”  
   
“Maybe,” Cas mumbled, tucking it away.  
   
“See you in an hour or so,” Dean said, eyes lingering on the box for a second.  
   
“Love you,” Cas said, giving Krissy a wave as he stepped back from the car.  Benny waved too and Cas joined him again to head to the shed.  
   
“Have you seen this before?” He asked Benny, handing him the little box.  
   
Benny took it, rubbing a thumb over the flower.  “Nope.  Not me.”  He opened the lid, examining the flower inside.  “That’s a poppy flower.”  
   
“Interesting,” Cas noted, wishing someone would claim the thing.  Benny handed it back and Cas put it back in his pocket.  He followed Benny, kinda wondering if he shouldn’t be doing something else.  But whatever Benny was showing him must be important too, right?  His lack of sleep was really taking a toll.  
   
After checking out the new tractor Benny was excited to have, he went back inside to lend a hand to Gabe.  
   
In the kitchen he stood for stood a moment to watch the wedding cake being brought in.  
   
“Can I get you something?” Kevin asked.  He was under strict orders to NOT assist with the placing of the cake on its movable table.  He had been banned from cake duty since Ava Wilson’s wedding, when he accidentally knocked the seven layered wedding cake over.  Gabe had fired him, but Cas said he could stay.  He had a soft spot for the over-worked bookworm.  
   
“No.  Unless this is yours.”  Cas pulled the box out, holding it up.    
   
Kevin took the box, staring at it.  “That’s a poppy flower,” he said quietly.  “I have no idea whose it is.”  He opened it, running his index finger along the back inside edge.  “There’s something carved into the wood.  What language is that?”  
   
Cas looked at it more closely.  “It’s Latin,” Cas said quietly, squinting hard.  He really needed to get reading glasses.  
   
Kevin closed the box, shoving it back to him.  “You should take it.  Give it to someone else.”    
   
Cas tucked the box away again with a frown.  Someone wanted it, he was sure of it.  He wondered suddenly if anyone had checked on the bride lately.  
   
   
*********************************************************  
   
   
Bela put the gloves she had used to handle the Poppy Box into a bag of items to be burned.    
   
That had been poetically easy.    
   
The cursed poppy box would work its magic over the next day until she could walk right in and take not only the cursed box, that she was sure was in their basement, but anything else she could move.  
   
She had slipped inside the front door with some excited bridesmaids as the florist had begun delivering flowers.  Too bad the back of the house was not so easily penetrable.  After seeing Sam talk to the florist like they were old friends, she simply handed him the box, telling him it was for the Winchester family.  A token of appreciation from Joshua, as he was out at his truck bringing in another load of flowers.  
   
It really didn’t matter what she said to Sam as she handed it over.  The moment Sam held the cursed wood in his hand, he was attracted to it in an addicted sort of way.  The cursed poppy would eat his memory away until he was little more than a zombie wandering around.  Opening it, which he had done too, released a need to give the box to someone.  By simply mentioning his family at that moment, the intended recipients would receive it.  The box would crave the Winchester family until it was reset for a new victim.    
   
It was a beautifully crafted piece of witchcraft.  The attraction made you want to hold the box while the memory-wiping magic set in.  The attraction compelled you to open it, the second poppy inside strengthened the memory fading and made you want to share it.  It had wiped out small towns back in its day.  A truly amazing little item that had brought Bela a good deal of money over the years.  Three times she had used the unobtrusive box to confuse the buyer (after she had been paid) and simply took the box back because they forgot why they had it.  It was not her fault people handled just any object without gloves.  
   
The beauty of this particular cursed object was its subtlety.  With a trite little giggle, she pulled away from the manor.  When she came back tomorrow night, they would be primed and ready to let her do whatever she pleased.  She’d work them all like zombified worker-drones and have them load their own belongings onto a moving-truck for her.  This was going to be one of her best scores yet.  
 


	2. Husbands, Kids, and Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Later that evening, everyone seems to be struggling to get through the wedding.  Luckily, Ellen and Bobby return with the kids.  
>  

Chapter 2:  Husbands, Kids, and Strangers  
   
   
Castiel and Sam handled the bridal party all morning, keeping things running smoothly.  Gabe kept tabs on the staff as they did their parts to finish preparations.  
   
Dean returned from the linen run with Krissy.  He found Cas in the first-floor office, checking the to-do list.  
   
“Hey, I’m back.”  He sat in one of the wingback chairs with a sigh.  
   
“Oh, good.”  Cas frowned at the list.  “I’m having trouble keeping this organized today for some reason.”  
   
Dean stood, coming up behind him to look at the list over his shoulder.  “Looks like you’re on schedule.  Was there a problem?”  
   
“No...”. Cas scratched his head.  “I just feel like I’m forgetting something.”  
   
“Well, this is a big wedding.  I’ll go get my suit on and help.  Guests should be coming soon.”  
   
Cas nodded.  “I’ll go...” he shrugged, “make sure the photographer has everything she needs.”  
   
Dean nodded, looking at the list.  All his thoughts seemed muddled today too.  “I think we’re just exhausted.  I checked on the boys.  Ellen said they’re having a great time.”  
   
“Good!” Cas smiled, turning to kiss him.  
   
Dean grinned, kissing him back.  Cas just stood there smiling at him.  It made Dean chuckle.  “Need a second quickie this morning?”  
   
Cas gave him a curious look.  “We...had sex this morning?”  
   
Dean smirked.  “Geez.  I know it was quick, but way ta make a guy feel like a loser!”  
   
Cas frowned.  “I...I barely remember this morning.”  He shook his head.  “Too much work.  We really need a break.”  
   
“Apparently,” Dean scoffed, stepping back from his husband.  
   
“I’m sorry!” Cas chuckled.  “Maybe you can give me a reminder once the wedding gets going.”  His eyes tripped down Dean’s body with a hungry little flush.  
   
“Yeah, right,” Dean shook his head.  “Gonna have to wait until tonight, tiger.”  He kissed Cas again, heading up to their apartment.  He was glad they had very little going on next week.  They really did need a break.  
   
   
***************************************************  
   
   
Charlie and Rufus pulled up to the shed.  It was a large stone and white-wood sided building with their old signage above the huge garage-style doors.  The beautifully crafted Winchester Family Business sign, made and designed by Dean, Sam, and Bobby years ago, was mounted above the garage bay doors.  It had been shipped from Kansas for them.    
   
Charlie and Rufus had spent the last few hours working at Garth’s house to put in an alarm system.  
   
Rufus turned the engine to the truck off, staring ahead, just as Charlie was doing.  
   
“Somethin’ weird goin’ on at Garth’s place?” Rufus asked her.  
   
“Right?!”  She whacked his arm, relieved he had thought something was strange there.  “For starters, when did he move out of the manor?  And who’s Bess?  And did you see all the raw meat in his refrigerator?”  
   
“Yeah!” Rufus nodded adamantly, the whites of his eyes a stark contrast as they bulged.  “He always was kinda squirrelly, but he was tellin’ me some really weird shit about werewolves!”  
   
“Werewolves?” She shook her head.  “Maybe he was talking about our LARPing club.”  
   
“Yeah.  Cause LARPing’s normal.”  
   
Charlie grinned.  “Normal is highly overrated.”  
   
“Yeah?  Well, at least it’s predictable.”  
   
They got out of the truck, unloading supplies into their section of the huge shed.  
   
The wide expanse of shed space held all sorts of equipment.  Two tractors for mowing, a snow plow, snow blower, some of their contracting equipment, and all the odds and ends Benny and Bobby used to keep the property in pristine condition.  They called it the shed, but it was big enough to park six cars inside.  
   
A staircase along the side wall led to an above office of sorts where Benny and Bobby kept track of all their fertilizing, mulching, and mowing schedules.  They heard a thump from the floor above their heads and went up to see who was there.  
   
Rufus gave the door to upper room a perfunctory knock and walked in.  
   
Benny was sitting at the counter mixing a batch of weed killer.  “Hey!” He called.  
   
“Hey, Benny,” Rufus answered flopping into an empty seat.  
   
“Hi,” Charlie added, sitting on the counter, her nose twisting at the smell of the chemicals.  “Have you seen Garth lately?” She asked.  
   
Benny looked up, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief.  “Can’t say I have.  I did see our friend Crowley at the Roadhouse.  He was lookin’ ten shades o shady.”  
   
“Crowley?  The neighbor?” Rufus asked.  
   
“The one,” Benny grinned.  “Asked me how things were goin’, actin’ like we were ole chums.”  Benny screwed the tops onto three bottles and started putting them onto shelves in the room.  “Asked if we wanted to come ova Sunday.”  
   
He stopped, looking at each of their puzzled faces.  
   
“Fo dinna.”  
   
“Dinner?” Charlie scoffed.  “What’s he going to serve?  Barbecued lizard tails and cricket legs?  Have you ever seen his place?  He and his mom have some bizarre pantry items to say the least.”  
   
“Mm mm,” Rufus shook his head.  “There is no way I’d step foot in that place.  The bosses might think he’s helping with the ghost problems, but I say he’s up to no good.”  
   
“My thoughts exactly,” Benny nodded.  “But Dean always seems to trust him.”  
   
“Yeah, as far as his ankle-tracker tracks him,” Charlie piped in.  “So what did you tell him?”  
   
“I jus kinda stared at him like he was crazy.  He stared back, startin’ to look kinda worried.  Asked me ‘bout some chick I didn’t know, got even more worried looking and left.”  
   
“He’s weird,” Rufus stated.  
   
“I don know.  Seemed like he thought somethin’ might be wrong with me.  Tell ya the truth, I been kinda out of it today.”  
   
Charlie nodded.  “Me too.”  
   
“Me three.”  Rufus blew a breath out.    
   
“Well, I ain’t goin’ ta dinner.  ‘Less Dean makes me.”  He rolled his eyes with a grin.  “He’ll probably make me.”  
   
Rufus shook his head ruefully.  “Wanna work on that old mower?”  
   
Benny got a confused look on his face.  “Did ya see the new one downstairs?  Where the hell did that come from?”  
   
Rufus shrugged.  The three went down to the shed to look at the new beast of a mower.  They found some other things they hadn’t seen before.  
   
   
   
************************************************  
   
   
   
Sam watched as the bride and groom hugged their congratulating guests as they filed out of the ballroom.  He couldn’t remember their freaking names.  The weddings were becoming a blur.  
   
Gabe came to stand next to him, directing the happy celebrators to the foyer, gallery, and waiting room for hors d’oeuvres, while the wedding party went to finish their wedding pictures.    
   
“What do we need to do now?” Gabe asked, watching the milling crowd.  
   
Sam frowned.  He felt tired.  Fuzzy-headed.  “Um...”. He spotted staff filing into the hall, looking like they knew what they were doing.  “Follow them?”  
   
Gabe nodded, looking as unsure as Sam felt himself.  They weaved through the guests, helping the workers to move chairs from how they had been sitting for the ceremony to set-up tables for the reception.  It seemed an impossible task.  And they were working so quickly.  
   
“You think this is a good system?” Sam wondered aloud as he fanned out a table cloth.  
   
“What?” Patience chimed a laugh, “it’s the quickest way we’ve found to get this done so far!”  She gave him a look, like he was being silly.  
   
“Right,” Sam nodded, blinking.  Something felt off.  “I guess I just need more practice.”  
   
She arched an eyebrow.  “We’ve done several hundred events, Sam.  I think we are a well-oiled machine at this point.”  
   
“Yeah,” he nodded, trying to cover quickly.  Several hundred events?  Surely that was an exaggeration.  He couldn’t remember nearly that many.  
   
“Kevin!” Someone snapped.  The guy was standing in the center of the ballroom looking lost.  “Move it!  The chairs won’t seat themselves!”  
   
Kevin jumped into action.  “How many at each table?” He asked.  
   
“Nine!” The man snapped as if Kevin had lost his mind.  
   
Sam busied himself setting each table in a flurry of activity.  The rest of the staff seemed quite adept with this.  He supposed he really should help more often so he could be as familiar as the others.  
   
   
   
*********************************************************  
   
   
   
Cas frowned at his phone.  Bobby had texted, saying they were having a great time with the kids.  It seemed awfully chilly to be taking three babies to the zoo.  It was 4:30 and the guests were milling about the foyer and gallery rooms, enjoying cocktails before the ballroom could be opened for the reception.  He stopped Gabe as he passed through the foyer.  
   
“Did you know Bobby took the kids to the zoo?” He asked him, pulling him into the office.  
   
Gabe frowned.  “I think so.  Yeah.”  
   
They both stood there a moment.  
   
“Why would you take three babies to the zoo?” Gabe asked.  
   
“My thoughts exactly.”  Castiel felt reassured that this seemed like such a ridiculous idea.  “They’ll be back in a few hours.”  
   
Gabe scratched his head.  “Did we know he was doing that?”  
   
Cas shrugged.  “I don’t think so.”  
   
Gabe sighed.  “Well, no harm, no foul, I suppose.”  
   
Castiel nodded.  “I suppose.”  
   
Dean stopped in the office door.  “There you are.  The reception is starting.”  
   
The brothers nodded, heading back to work.  
   
 

********************************************************

   
   
Dean stood at the back of the ballroom, watching as the bride and groom danced their first dance as husband and wife.  He could not shake the feeling of being tired and disconnected with all of tonight’s proceedings.  Things seemed to be running smoothly.  It was amazing that people could pull off such an event.  
   
He wondered idly if he and Cas would ever get married.  It seemed like they had...but, he was probably just confusing his tired thoughts with the stream of weddings they helped work through week after week.  
   
Cas came to stand next to him.  “Hello, Dean.”  
   
“Hey, Cas.”  Dean blushed slightly at the way the man looked at him so familiarly.    
   
“You look really nice in your suit,” Dean said, noticing the adorable crinkles around Cas’ grinning eyes had multiplied.  
   
Cas bit his lip, stepping a little closer to him.  “You do, as well.”  
   
Dean winked at him, losing interest in the wedding.  “Wanna go sneak off and...”  
   
Cas grinned wider, blushing.  He took Dean’s hand and lead him out of the ballroom.  As they crossed the foyer to head off to wherever Cas had thought of to go sneak away and have a quickie, they froze in their tracks.  Bobby stood in the office with Ellen.  What was weird was the little kids they had with them.  
   
A strange twinge tugged at Dean’s chest.  He headed straight for them.  He started to chuckle as the little boy in a blue coat in Bobby’s arms waved a stuffed bear at him.  “What the hell’s this?  You babysitting now?”  
   
Bobby and Ellen gave him a curious look.  Ellen hoisted a little girl higher on her hip.  “I wouldn’t call spending the day with our grandkids babysitting.”  
   
Another little boy in a red coat that looked just like the kid in the blue coat, ran up to Cas, grabbing a fistful of his slacks.  “Daddy!  Up!”  He held his little arms up to be picked up, his face shining with joy.  
   
“Daddy?” he frowned down at him, unable to resist the invitation.  He picked the boy up, looking at him curiously.  “I’m not your daddy.”  
   
Dean snickered.  
   
“What the hell’s goin’ on with you?” Bobby snapped under his breath.  
   
Cas stared at the boy.  There was something familiar about him.  “Whose kids are these?”  
   
“And why would you bring them here?” Dean asked, watching all of them with growing irritation.  
   
Bobby and Ellen stared at them hard.  
   
“Castiel,” Ellen said in her no-nonsense tone, making him look at her quickly, “what’s gotten into you?”  
   
Cas glanced at Dean, unsure of what she meant.  He sat the toddler on his feet again, only to get the same plea of ‘daddy, up!’ With a whinier tone.  
   
Cas stepped back from the child, looking wholly confused and unsure of what to do.  
   
“Whose kids are these, Bobby?” Dean asked more forcefully.  
   
“They’re yours!” Bobby snapped with a mixture of fear and absurdity.  
   
The boy, getting nowhere with Cas, toddled over to Dean with the same plea.  “Daddy, up!”  
   
Dean stared down at the thick brown hair and blue eyes.  A name for him swam somewhere in his memories, but nothing came to mind.  “Bobby, what the hell is going on?”  
   
Dean looked up, getting a face full of water.  He gasped, wiping a hand down his face.  “What the hell, Bobby!”  
   
“Not a demon,” Bobby grunted, putting a bottle back in his jacket.  
   
“Ow!” Cas yelped, jerking away from Ellen slapping the flat of a knife on the back of his hand.  
   
“Not a shapeshifter,” Ellen said to Bobby, putting the knife away.  
   
“You hit me with a knife!” Cas said incredulously, eyes wide with shock and a trace of disgust.  “While holding a child!”  
   
Bobby and Ellen exchanged worried looks.  “Where’s Sam and Gabe?” Ellen barked, pulling her own phone out to call them.  
   
“We’re in the middle of a wedding,” Cas noted.  “Do these guys belong to a hunter or something?”  
   
Bobby’s look of absurdity slid into wariness.  “Cas, Dean, these are your boys.  What happened to you?”  
   
Dean laughed.  “Look, I know you think Cas is really good for me and all, but you’re kinda puttin’ the cart before the horse, aren’t ya?  Cas and I have only been going out for...what?”  His memories slid and shifted, fading out of reach.  “A few months?”  
   
Cas nodded.  “I think I would know if we had children.”  
   
Bobby nodded, his eyes watching Dean and Cas.  He slid his own phone out and started texting.  
   
Looking down at the sulking little boy with a stuffed shark, Dean picked him up.  “Whatsa matter little guy?”  
   
The boy folded in on him, hugging him.  “My tark.” He held the toy up higher.  
   
“Oh, you got a shark?  Did Bobby get you this?”  He chuckled, looking at Bobby.  “You ole softie.”  
   
All Bobby had for him was a bewildered look of horror.  “Dean, are you telling me you don’t recognize your own kids?  Jack...Eric?”  
   
“And you and Cas have been married for almost six years now!” Ellen said, just as bewildered.  
   
“Whoa,” Dean backed up a step, not liking this little charade.  
   
“You are wearing a wedding ring!” Ellen pointed.  
   
Dean shifted the boy to his other arm, looking down at his hand.  A gold band sat snuggly on his finger.  “What the hell?!”  He abruptly sat the kid down, looking at Cas.    
   
Cas looked just as confused, staring at a matching band.  His blue eyes jumped up to Dean’s with shock.  “What’s happening?”  
   
Dean slid the ring off, suddenly aware of the feeling of it.  A white line, the unmistakable sign of a well-worn wedding ring, indented his ring finger.  “What the hell?”  
   
Sam came into the office.  “Hey Ellen.  Nice to see you at the manor!”  
   
Ellen cleared her throat.  “Sam, please...please tell me you know who this is.”  She indicated the little girl in her arms who turned to him.  
   
Sam grinned, stepping forward.  “No, but she’s a cutie!”  The girl reached for him instantly.  “Oh wow!”  He took her, holding her with a big grin.  “You are so cute!”  The little girl slumped onto his shoulder sucking her thumb and reaching to feel his hair in her tiny fingers.  Sam lit up.  “She’s so cute!”  
   
Ellen and Bobby stared.    
   
“Sam,” Ellen said with a threat of a warning in her tone, “that is your daughter.  Grace.”  
   
Sam scoffed.  He looked down at the little girl as if she were a completely foreign object.  Which she was.  
   
“Ellen,” he frowned hard at her.  “Why would you say that?”  He went to hand her back, but the girl whined with the threat of a cry and Sam settled her back to where she had been.  He turned to Dean with a startled look.  “Who’s that?”  
   
Dean looked at the little boy.  “Apparently I have a kid too.  And I’m freaking married.”  
   
“What?” Sam scoffed.  “This is ridiculous.”  
   
“Ellen,” Cas pressed, “what are you two talking about?”  He had slid his ring off as well, frowning at it and sliding it back on.  
   
Bobby was losing his temper.  “Ya don’t have ONE kid, Dean, you have TWO!  What the hell happened to you all?”    
   
“Us?” Dean and Cas argued.  
   
“You’re the ones showing up with a preschool and telling us they’re ours!” Dean yelled, really starting to lose his shit here.  
   
“I’m calling Jody,” Ellen mumbled.  She turned slightly, pacing toward a large portrait of a park with swans swimming on a peaceful lake.  He had helped Cas pick it out from an auction site.  It was huge and rich looking with a gold painted, thick frame.  It really looked nice in the room.  He wondered idly when they had hung it.  
   
“Jody, this is Ellen Singer.  We have a...I don’t even know what the hell we have going on here, at the manor.  We’re gonna need back-up.”  
   
Sam looked confused.  He turned to Dean, stepping closer, still holding the little girl.  “Who’s Jody?”  
   
Dean frowned.  “Dude, Jody...the hunter lady.”  
   
Sam wrinkled his mouth as if that were interesting but didn’t ring a bell.  
   
“The hunter.  She helped us get the whole set-up for hunters coming to the back door.  Bad-ass?  Short hair?”  
   
Sam shook his head, looking lost.  
   
Dean gave Bobby a worried look.  “I think we might have a problem.”  
   
“Ya think?” Bobby deadpanned.  
   
   
   
**********************************************************  
   
   
   
Ellen left with the children and Bobby had him, his brother, and Dean and Sam corralled into the hunter reference room.

Castiel had learned several things.  
   
1\. He had children.  Two boys.  Eric and Jack.  And...a husband.  
2\. Gabe was married to Sam.  And they had a daughter, Grace.  
3\. Buddy was looking really gray in the face.  
4\. He seemed to be having trouble remembering things.

   
Castiel sat at the table in the reference room, watching Dean and Sam pace the room.  The thought of being married to Dean sat warm and fuzzy in his chest.  He liked the thought.  He liked Dean.  He caught his eye, holding the gaze briefly.  Dean was...very handsome.  
   
“I think this used to be a suite,” Sam said, looking at the window and wall with the keen eye of an architect.  
   
“Yeah,” Dean nodded.  
   
The door opened and Bobby came in looking rattled.  “Looks like we have a damn epidemic of sorts.”  Kevin, Benny, Krissy, Charlie, and Rufus all filed into the room, looking lost and confused.  
   
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.    
   
“Come on, Bobby!” Gabe groaned, “you gonna give up this craziness?  Now you’re dragging in the whole household!”  
   
“Simmer down, amnesia-boy,” Bobby sighed.  “Ellen took the kids ta the apartment.”  
   
“Kids?” Sam asked, “what kids?”  
   
Bobby shook his head with a pained look on his face.  “I’m calling Jody again.”  
   
“Who is Jody?” Dean asked.  
   
Bobby rolled his eyes.  “Never mind.”  
   
Cas tapped his fingers on the table he sat at.  Bobby seemed very stressed about something.  Now he was bringing in other people.  Rufus and Benny were here, so maybe they were meeting about heating or ventilation or something with the house.  “Where are the house plans?” He asked, looking around the empty table.  “What were we fixing?  The second-floor ventilation system?”  
   
Benny gave him a strange look.  “No, boss.  We been on the third-floor system for a while now.”  
   
Castiel cataloged all the projects they had been working on.  He was sure they had just recently started the second-floor renovations.  “Dean...”.  
   
“Yeah?” Dean came to sit at the table, Sam joining him.  
   
“Where’s my throne?” Gabriel asked, staring at the regular chair sitting at the head of the little table.  
   
“Probably in the dining room,” Sam grinned.  “Time for a spec meeting, isn’t it?”  
   
“Yes!” Cas agreed, Sam and Dean nodding along.  
   
“No!” Bobby barked, shaking his head, still on the phone.  “I gotta go, Jody.  The sooner you get here, the better.”  
   
“Who’s Jody?” Dean asked, looking right at him, his green eyes locking onto his, zapping the breath right out of his chest.    
   
“I don’t know,” he stammered, licking his dry lips.  
   
Dean nodded minutely.    
   
Bobby came to the table.  “Okay, have ya eaten anything weird?  Drank something?  Gotten a weird gift?”  He looked at each of them with an impatient expectancy.  
   
“No,” Rufus and the other two mumbled.  
   
“The box,” Cas and the young lady who came in with him said.  
   
Cas pulled the small box from his jacket pocket.  “Have you seen this?” Cas smiled, wanting Bobby to look at it.  
   
“Yeah, that,” the girl pointed, taking a step back.  “Cas was trying to give it to Dean this morning.”  
   
Dean frowned at the girl.  She looked so familiar.  Katie?  Krissy? Keri?  
   
Bobby grabbed a towel from the kitchen area, taking the box with a look of disgust, wrapping it up quickly and sitting it on the counter.  “Where’d ya get that Cas?”  
   
Castiel shrugged.  “I...I don’t remember.  Is it yours?  You should look at it.”  He stood up to take the box back.  If Bobby wasn’t going to look at it, he wanted it back.  
   
“Don’t touch that,” Bobby warned, surprising Cas.  
   
“It’s mine.”  
   
“Is it?  Are you sure?” Bobby asked, eyes narrowing to two black marbles as he studied him suspiciously.  
   
“I...” Cas frowned.    
   
“I think it’s a cursed object.  That’s what Jody told me to look for.  Something you ate, drank, or a strange object.”  
   
“I don’t know who this Jody person is,” Cas said testily, “but I want that back.  You should look at it.”  
   
He edged toward the counter, Bobby blocking him.  “Dean!” Bobby called.  
   
Dean was on his feet, Gabe behind him.  “Bobby!  What the hell?” Dean yelled.  
   
Bobby turned, scooping the towel into his arms and dodging around them out the door.  
   
Cas turned to Dean with shock.  
   
“Did he just run away?” Dean scoffed.  
   
“This way!” Sam yelled, chasing after him.  
 

They all followed Sam out of the room.  He could hear Dean yelling for Bobby to stop.  Bobby had run into a room, through another door and into the basement.  
   
Cas froze at the top of the steps.  The last time he had been down here, he had gone through the crawlspace and fallen through.  There were strange things and stranger rooms down there.  He advanced more carefully, seeing Bobby run through the largest of the rooms, passing shelves full of strange things.  Dean was only a few steps behind him.  By the time he was in the large storage room himself, he heard a clatter from the other room.  
   
“What are you doing, Bobby?” Dean yelled.  
   
“I’m protecting you!” Bobby yelled back.  
   
Castiel came into the narrower room, surprised to see Bobby had locked himself in a cell.  Dean stood on the outside of the bars staring at the man.    
   
“This box is cursed.  I’m sure of it,” Bobby was saying, sitting the towel on the ground, out of everyone’s reach.  
   
The cell had not been used as a cell in a very long time.  Cas had never seen the door to it shut before.  The cell was just used as a storage room with shelves holding an array of boxes.  Bobby was shoving his way through them now.  He opened one and put the towel inside it.  It was a strange, wooden box with large hinges and a big lock.  There were weird lines drawn on it.  It looked evil.  And now his little box was inside it.  He weaved through the others to look through the bars as Bobby slammed the lid shut and tried to make a call on his phone, pacing away from it.  
   
“Has he lost his mind?” Cas asked.  
   
“Maybe he’s possessed by Lucifer,” Sam stared at his old friend with a haunted look.  
   
“Lucifer,” Dean muttered, his eyes crawling along the ceiling as if the ghost of him would reappear.    
   
   
*************************************************  
   
   
Rufus frowned as the whole lot of them chased that fool Bobby out of the room.  He didn’t have time for this. He needed to start digging up that clay pipe just outside the patio.  He went out the side door.  Everything in this section of the house looked so strange.  He did not remember this room at all.  And there was a door blocking the hallway now.    
   
These damn-fool people were strange.  
   
He had work to do.  He had the whole length of pipe to dig up.  And he needed to get started.  It was already dark, and he should at least get the yard marked off and make sure the back-hoe was working.  
   
   
***************************************************  
   
   
Krissy knew very well what a cursed object was.  The guy in the trucker hat had said he thought they were all cursed by that little box.  She had barely looked at it.  But her thoughts had been scattered all day.  She couldn’t study earlier, and she wondered where her dad was.  
   
She called him, pacing around the little room.  
   
“Dad?”  
   
“Hey, Krissy.  How are you?”  
   
The familiar tone of her father’s voice made her shoulders relax.  “Dad...I think you need to come get me.  I’m at this house.  The hunter place.  But...Sam and Dean are acting really weird and some guy said...” she searched through her thoughts.  Why was she calling her dad again?  
   
“Krissy?”  
   
She shook her head.  “When are you coming to get me?”  
   
“Are you okay?  I’m in Indiana right now.  Chasin’ a skin-walker.  But you don’t sound so good.”  
   
“Oh...I’m fine.  I just wondered when you were coming to get me.”  
   
“Coming to get you?  Krissy, is something wrong?”  
   
Krissy looked at the empty doorway, her foot starting to tap nervously.  “I think so.”  
   
She heard him sigh.  “I can be there in a day.  You good until then?”  
   
“I think so.”  
   
“I’ll call Jody.  Tell her to head over and check in on you.”    
   
“Sam and Dean know Jody, right?”  
   
“Of course,” he scoffed.  “Are you sure you’re all right?”  
   
Krissy chewed her lip in worry.  “I’m sure it’ll be fine until you get here.  But everyone is acting...weird.”  
   
   
*************************************************  
   
   
Bobby leaned as hard against the bars of the cell as he could, stretching his arm out to hopefully find service for his phone.  If he had known the lock on the damn cell was so rusted, he would not have pulled it shut the whole way.  Now he was stuck.  And the Scooby gang was wandering around the basement rifling through shit that aught not ta be touched, talking like they were back in time seven or eight years!  He stretched his arm out as far as it would go.  
   
No use.  No service.  
   
He sighed, pulling his arm back inside the cell.  “Balls.”  
   
Jody better hurry the hell up.  If she waited too long, they were all gonna forget they even lived here.  Not to mention the wedding going on upstairs, barely being attended to.  
   
He sat on a box, head tipped back against one of the shelves.  “Balls!”  
 


	3. In a Dungeon, Locked In a Guest Room, and Down a Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Ellen went to the apartment over the barn with the kids to stay out of trouble.  The Scooby gang are wandering around in the basement.  And, oh, yeah, Bobby’s stuck in a cell with shelves full of cursed objects.  
> All in all, the nine affected by the memory-stealing box are rapidly losing their memories.  
>    
> What could possibly go wrong?  
>  

Chapter 3:  In a Dungeon, Locked In a Guest Room, and Down a Rabbit Hole  
   
   
   
Dean pulled another box open.  “Why haven’t we dug through this stuff before?”  He lifted a metal frame with rubber bladders that inflated and deflated when you squeezed them.  “There’s some weird shit in here.”  
   
Cas grabbed his forearm, making him jump and drop the contraption with a clatter, making Buddy skirt away from them.  “I heard someone upstairs!”  
   
Dean looked up at the stone ceiling above them.  “Maybe it’s Charlie.  Or Benny.”  
   
“Or Lucifer!” Cas gasped.  “The place is haunted!  Remember?”  
   
Sam shivered next to him, shoving a box of empty gun shells back on the shelf.  “We better get outta here.”  
   
“Haunted?” The guy with them repeated, looking terrified.  
   
“Who are you?” Dean asked.  The kid had been following them around the basement like a lost puppy.  
   
“I’m Kevin!  And I don’t know why I’m here!  My mom is gonna freak out!”  
   
“Your mom?  Dude, you’re like 20!”  
   
“I’m 17!  I think I have an AP Physics test tomorrow!” The guy blurted, looking worried.  
   
“I wouldn’t be worried about physics,” Gabe scoffed.  “I’d be more worried you’re gonna get ripped to shreds by a ghost!”  
   
“What?!” Kevin whimpered, looking around in terror.  
   
“Let’s get him outta here,” Dean insisted, steering the kid and Cas toward the door.  “I hate when you go poking around down here, Cas.  You know that.”  Surely Cas had been the one that prompted this little field trip when they should be at a spec meeting.  
   
“I didn’t...” Cas started to defend himself, but stopped, seeming unsure what to say next.  
   
“Uh huh.”  Dean shook his head.  Cas could really be a pain in the ass sometimes with all his ‘adventuring’.  
   
They headed up the steps slowly, Dean leading the way.  When he got to the top of the steps, he was surprised to realize they were not in the bathroom, where the door had been.  The door was the same, but a wall had been added.  A freaking room had been added.  They were in a storage room.  He glanced into some of the bins on the shelves.  There were guns.  Bullets.  Knives.  Bottles of the weirdest shit.  “Holy water?” He asked, holding up a bottle of clear liquid with the label on it.  
   
Sam held up another one.  “Dead man’s blood,” he read, making a disgusted face.  
   
“What the hell?” Kevin squeaked, clinging to the strings of his apron.  
   
“Chalk,” Cas said, pushing a bin back into place curiously.  
   
“These look like fun,” Gabe waggled his eyebrows, lifting a set of metal handcuffs from a box.  
   
“Where the hell are we?” Sam asked, looking just as lost as he felt.  
   
“I don’t know.  But we sure do have a lot of weapons,” Dean noted.  
   
“Maybe we’re at Crowley’s house!” Cas guessed, going through the door.  
   
Like a parade of spectators, they made their way through a door and down a hall.  
   
“We’re at Kripke Manor,” Cas whispered, looking down a short hall that led to the solarium.  
   
Dean stepped up behind him, staring down the hall.  “Then why is it all so different?”  
   
“I have to go!” Kevin blurted.  “If I’m late, my mom will ground me until I’m thirty!”    
   
They watched as Kevin took off, leaving through the back-patio door.  
   
“That kid is more wound up than Cassie was at his age,” Gabe said, shaking his head.  
   
A woman in a fancy silver dress came around the corner at the end of the hall near the library.  “There you are!”  Her hair was swept up into a styled French twist and her heels clicked smartly on the hard wood flooring.  “I wanted to pay you.”  
   
Everyone glanced at each other.    
   
“For what?” Gabe mumbled.  
   
Dean glanced at Cas, Sam, and Gabe in their suits.  “A wedding?”  
   
“The wedding!”  Gabe grinned, stepping through them to greet the woman confidently.  “For the wedding, right?”  
   
The woman gave him a curious grin as she stopped in front of him.  “Well...yes!”  
   
“Yes!” Gabe laughed, turning to the rest of them with a ‘What-the-fuck’ expression.  “The wedding.”  He started walking her toward the front of the house.  
   
“Alright,” Dean said off-handedly.  He followed Gabe to watch what they did.  “We’ll meet you guys in the dining room.”  
   
Cas and Sam nodded.  
   
Dean followed Gabe and the paying lady to the office by the foyer.  He stared around the office in wonder.  There were things in here he did not remember being here.  The rug was different.  The collection of wedding photos displayed on a set of long shelves were fascinating.  He stared long and hard at a wedding photo of him and Cas.  He struggled to remember it.  Like waking from a dream when the dream slipped from your thoughts the harder you thought about it.  But there they stood, by the gazebo.  Pink poinsettias lined the railings and steps.  Lights twinkled among them.  It was a beautiful picture.  He and Cas looked so happy.  He looked down at his hand, surprised to see a wedding ring on his finger.  He twisted it, swearing he could remember it sliding home for the first time...but then the sliver of a memory was gone.  He stared at the picture again.  Something was wrong.  
   
“Thank you again,” Gabe was saying.  “I hope you enjoyed it.”  
   
“Oh, it was so beautiful!  I’m so glad we could do the wedding here at the manor!  Your staff is wonderful, and the grounds are just so beautiful!”  
   
Gabe nodded, shaking her hand again.  The woman walked out into the foyer, which was crowded with people all dressed up.  
   
Dean joined Gabe in the doorway to watch as guests left.  
   
“Dude!” Gabe hissed, leaning over to whisper loudly.  “She just gave me a check for $5,000!”  
   
“What?” Dean snapped, looking down at him in shock.  
   
Gabe arched an eyebrow in acknowledgement with a tiny nod.  He looked back at the crowd, giving a friendly wave to an older man who had tipped his hat to him.  
   
They stood there for some time as guests left and staff in black pants and white dress shirts brought coats out and cheerfully saw them out the doors.  
   
A girl, who worked for them by the look of her uniform, walked up to them.  “Everything went really well.  There are a few still lingering in the ballroom, but they should all be cleared out within the hour.”  
   
“Okay,” Gabe said.  “Then what?”  
   
The girl gave him a hesitant double-take.  “Uh...clean up.  We should all be cleared out by 12:30.  The kitchen is in good order.”  
   
“Very good,” Gabe nodded.  Dean knew Gabe didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but he was covering really well.  
   
The girl walked back to the coat-check, helping to get people their coats.  
   
Gabe stepped back into the office, shutting the door.  “What the fuck is going on?”  
   
Dean shook his head.  “When did we start doing weddings?  The house is still more than half under construction and haunted as fuck!”  
   
Gabe scratched his head, pacing.  
   
“And there’s a wedding picture over there with you in it.”  
   
Gabe froze.  “Shut the fuck up.”  
   
Dean nodded, following him back to the shelves.  
   
“Hot damn!  I married SAM?” Gabe yelled.  
   
“Shhh!  Looks that way.  I don’t friggin’ remember that happening.  Do you?”  
   
“Hells no!”  Gabe whistled low.  “He is one FINE, tall drink of yumalicous though!”  
   
“Ew.  Shut up.”  Dean scanned the other pictures.  “Look!  There’s Bobby and Ellen!  What the fuck!”  
   
“There’s Garth and some chick,” Gabe pointed.  
   
“And Charlie and some chick,” Dean pointed.  
   
“Isn’t that the pool girl?  Dorothy?”  
   
“Huh...yeah.  I think you’re right.”  
   
“We gotta find Sam and Cas.”  
   
“Dude!  You married my brother!  Ha!”  
   
Dean smirked, staring at the photo again.  “According to this picture, I did.  I can’t fucking believe it though.  Talk about fucking hot!”  
   
Gabe whacked his arm.  “Not cool.  That’s my baby bro.”  
   
   
   
***************************************************  
   
   
When the bosses decided to explore the basement, Charlie and Benny figured they would as well.  They went the opposite direction, hearing some sort of scraping noise from deeper in the basement.  
   
“Hey!” Bobby called after them.  “Don’t go back there!”  
   
Benny had never been at odds with Bobby before.  He turned back to his mentor and friend.  “Give me the box, Bobby.”  
   
Bobby frowned.  “I can’t do that Benny.  It’s making you sick.  It’s messin’ with yer heads!”  
   
Benny frowned, squinting thoughtfully at Bobby. “Are you sick too?”  
   
“No,” Bobby sighed.  “I didn’t look at it.  But by the way yer actin’ a fool, I’m guessin’ you did.”  
   
Charlie stepped up beside him.  “Bobby, just look at it.  Then give it to me.”  
   
Bobby sighed, looking toward the ceiling in frustration.  
   
“Come on,” Charlie grinned, nudging Benny with her elbow.  “Let’s see what we can find this way.  Maybe the keys to the cell are back here.”  
   
Benny nodded, feeling slightly bad for leaving Bobby.  He followed Charlie as they went down a hall.  They heard a clatter from Dean and the gang, but everything seemed fine.   They stopped at another cell, staring into it.  
   
A man sat in a wooden chair, cuffed and bound to it.  Chains wrapped around his torso, thighs, and calves, linking up the center and around his waist.  His head lifted slowly, staring at them.  
   
“Who might you be?” He asked, eyes flitting between the pair of them.  
   
Charlie took a step back, but Benny leaned against the bars casually.  
   
“Who might you be?” Benny countered.  
   
The man leaned, as if he could see out of the cell and further up the hall.  “What did the old guy do?”  
   
“I was kinda wonderin’ what YOU did to end up in a basement, chained to a chair.”  
   
The guy studied the pair of them.  After a full two minutes of neither saying anything, he sat back in the chair, his face adopting a worried look.  “I’m scared.  Some mean man brought me here and left me!  Can you help me?”  
   
Charlie looked immediately worried, reaching for the cell door.  Benny grabbed her wrist, still watching the man.  She stopped, giving Benny a startled look.  “Aren’t we going to rescue him?”  
   
“I’m jus wonderin’ how someone comes to be locked up, chained up, and, if I’m not mistaken, sittin’ smack dab in the middle of a devil’s trap.”  
   
“What’s a devil’s trap?” Charlie asked, looking at the huge, symbol filling the floor of the cell, painted in white on the grimy floor.  
   
“Red, ya know I’m from New Orleans.  I’ve seen voodoo and occult stuff all my childhood.  That is a devil’s trap.  Traps someone with a demon in them.”  
   
“I’m not a demon!”  The man assured.  
   
Charlie frowned with worry.  She turned to Benny.  “What if he isn’t?  What if this is something to do with the ghost problem?”  
   
“Not a ghost!” The man eagerly assured them.  “Just a nice guy that needs out.”  
   
“Stay away from him!” Bobby yelled from up the hall.  “He’s a shifter!”  
   
“A what?” Benny asked, standing up taller now, listening.  
   
“A shapeshifter!” Bobby yelled.  “How ‘bout this, if ya touch that guy, yer fired.”  
   
Benny frowned hard at that.  “Bobby.”  
   
“Don’t Bobby me!  You two both better get back to work!”  
   
Confused, the pair exchanged a look.  
   
“Just let me out,” the man whispered, hissing at the way the silver chain to his handcuffs shifted and burned when it touched his skin.    
   
“I mean it!”  Bobby called.  
   
“We better go,” Charlie said, tugging Benny’s sleeve.  “We can ask Dean about it.”  
   
Benny nodded, heading upstairs.  By the time they got up there, they had forgotten what they were going to ask about and decided to go grab a snack from the kitchen.  
   
   
   
****************************************************  
   
   
Castiel had learned several things.

1\. Drunk wedding guests were funny.  
2\. Gabriel had gone too far.  The dining room looked like a fucking safari.  
3\. Charlie was nuts.  She said there was a shapeshifter in the basement.  1) What the fuck was a shapeshifter? 2) They didn’t have a fucking basement.  
4\. He was having trouble remembering things.  
   
   
   
Since Dean and Gabe decided they were done snooping around the office, they went to the foyer to figure out what to do for the wedding.  
   
Dean laughed.  “Looks like the staff knows what they’re doing, so let’s go to the dining room and see what the hell the others know.”  
   
“Right,” Gabe nodded.  “Time for a spec meeting.”  
   
They crossed through the crowd of finely dressed patrons, waving cordially.  Dean was shocked again to see the dining room.  
   
“WHOAH!!!” Gabe’s eyes lit up.  “Look at this room!”  
   
Cas turned from the hutch.  “Gabriel.  When did you have a damn safari painted in here?”  
   
“I don’t know,” he said in wonder, staring around the room, “but it’s fucking awesome!”  
   
Dean laughed, going over to stand beside...his husband.  He stifled a giggle.  
   
“Did you help Gabe with this?” Cas asked, pointing around the room.  
   
Dean shrugged.  “Hell if I know.  It’s awesome though.”  
   
“Baby!” Gabe marveled, stroking his throne as he continued to stare around the room.  “I fucking love it!”  He jumped the arm of the throne, standing on the seat to take in the room like a king taking in his realm.  He put his hands on his hips and nodded as if all were right with the world.  
   
“Gabe.  Get down,” Sam laughed, taking his hand.  
   
“Samburger!  Did you do all this for me?”  He let Sam pull him off the throne, sweeping him off his feet.  
   
“I...I don’t think so,” Sam grinned, kissing him.  “But I’m glad it makes you happy!”  
   
“Happy?  I won the fucking lottery of happy!  You, sir, are my HUSBAND!”  
   
“What?” Sam laughed, standing him on his feet but keeping an arm around his shoulders.  
   
“That’s true,” Dean nodded.  “We were just looking at your wedding picture.”  
   
Sam frowned in wonder but looked down at Gabe.  “Married.”  
   
Gabe nodded with a wide grin.  “Kiss me, husband.”  
   
Sam chuckled but bent to kiss him.  As it quickly turned more heated, Dean turned to Cas, who was staring at the pair in wonder.  
   
“And you’re my husband, Thursday.”  
   
Cas looked up at him in shock.  “I am?”  
   
Dean lifted his hand, reassured by the sight of a wedding ring that matched his on Cas’ finger.  He kissed his hand with a grin.  
   
“Dean,” Cas whispered, a grin growing on his face.  He didn’t know what to make of the rings, but he knew exactly what to make of Dean.  He remembered the first time Dean had called him Thursday.  They had been drunk.  He had wanted to kiss Dean so badly.  They’d had their first party in the running room and Cas had lost all interest in Sam, falling for Dean and his green eyes, his smart mouth, and his adorable charm.  And the nickname had given him away.  Dean had been thinking about him secretly, in tender ways that made Castiel’s insides curl and flutter.  
   
Dean watched a look of longing warm Cas’ cheeks.  His blue eyes grew heavily lidded, looking at his mouth as he licked his dry lips.  He had to feel Cas closer.  Had to test the feelings of want that coursed through him.  He took him by the hand, heading into the kitchen as Buddy followed them.  
   
The kitchen was the wrong room for privacy.  It was bustling with activity.  They got a few glances before Dean pulled Cas up the steps, searching for a private corner.  The second-floor kitchen was busy as well.  
   
“This fucking place is crawling with people!”  Dean bitched, pulling Cas toward the gallery and stairs to the foyer below.  A few guests were making their way downstairs as they walked briskly by.  
   
Dean opened doors in the hallway, deciding to not use a room that looked like a living room.  
   
“When did we decorate in here?” Cas asked.  
   
“No friggin’ clue,” Dean laughed, feeling high on the anticipation of Cas so willingly following him.  “Last time we had sex in there, the room was empty.  Not even the flooring had been done.”  
   
“I remember the splinters,” Cas grinned.  
   
Dean opened another door, finding a bedroom.  “Whose room is this?” Dean asked.  
   
“It says ‘Guest Room 4’ on the door,” Cas insisted, pushing him into the room and slamming the door shut.  
   
Dean rounded on him, unable to stop looking at his mouth.  “Cas.”  
   
Cas launched a kiss on him that had Dean weak in the knees.  He turned Cas, backing him toward the bed blindly.  “I want this to be real,” Dean panted, the pair of them falling onto the bed.  
   
“It has to be,” Cas gasped back.  
   
Dean pulled back, staring down at Cas.  “But...what if it isn’t?  What if it’s the ghost?”  
   
Cas studied him a moment, his eyes roving over his face.  “I don’t think a ghost could feel so...warm.  Or good.”  He licked his lips, sweeping his thumb over Dean’s cheek.  “I know I’m me...”  
   
Dean dipped his head down, kissing him.  “Well, I know I’m me.”  
   
“Then take me.  Right now.”  Cas stared up at him, undoing his buttons methodically.  Dean, on all fours over him, watched his graceful hands work the buttons open smoothly.  
   
He sat back on his heels to let Cas sit up to pull his jacket and shirt off, pulling the t-shirt off next.  “We’ve had sex before,” he mumbled, knowing deep down it was true.  Flitting memories sliding through his mind.  He unbuckled Cas’ thin belt with ease, fishing his warm, hard penis from the fabric of his boxers.  It felt so familiar in his hand.  Almost as familiar as his own.  
   
“I don’t have any lube,” Cas murmured, almost a moan as his head dropped back onto the pillow.  
   
“Looks like we’re stuck with the basics,” Dean grinned, bending down to slide Cas’ dick into his mouth.    
   
After only a few peremptory slides, Cas’ hips rocked gently.  “There is nothing ‘basic’ about that!”  
   
Dean chuckled, making Cas groan in delight.  His hands slid into his hair and along his cheeks, feeling the slide and bulge of himself, making Dean moan.  
   
He sucked and swiped his tongue, knowing the feel of Cas’ body as he rocked and his hands balled up in the bedspread.  He knew this body as well as he knew his own.  
   
When Cas came, it was with a soundless cry.  His whole body arching into him.  Even the taste of him was familiar.  
   
“Dean,” he panted, arms loose and flopped to the sides, eyes closed in bliss.  
   
Dean grinned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  He crawled over him again, kissing his neck, his jaw, nipping his earlobes, finally landing on the easy grin of his lips.  
   
Eventually, Cas pushed him back, heaving a deep breath before he sat up.  Dean backed away.  That had been incredibly hot.    
   
He moved as Cas swung his legs over the side of the bed.  He watched with anticipation as Cas tucked himself away and buckled his belt again.  He settled his blue eyes on Dean with a heavy grin.  Silently he reached out.  Dean took his hand, getting off the bed.  Maybe he wasn’t getting reciprocated here.  That sucked.  But it was okay.  His mind fogged again with the details of just when or if they had done this before.  Maybe Cas wasn’t into blowjobs.  
   
“Sit,” Cas said with a tiny grin lifting one corner of his mouth, his head nodding toward a wingback chair in the corner.  
   
Dean, suddenly feeling nervous about this whole encounter, went to the chair and sat.  
   
Shit.  Cas was his boss.  What exactly was their relationship again?  
   
Cas pulled his dress shirt on, leaving it open, tie undone but hanging open around the collar.  
   
Dean scooted his butt in the chair, wanting him so badly.  He hoped Cas was going to do something to him.  Anything.  
   
Cas leaned down, resting both hands on the arms of the chair.  God, he was powerful.  A lawyer.  Rich.  Owner of this mess of a mansion.  His boss.  
   
Dean gasped slightly as Cas leaned in, kissing him hard and heavy, open and wet.  Shit!  So fucking dirty!  This wasn’t fair!  He shouldn’t sleep with his boss!  
   
His chest heaved, his lips feeling swollen as Cas pulled away.  “Cas...you don’t have to...”  
   
“Oh, I want to,” Cas grinned, his voice ragged.  
   
Something in Dean’s insides released the tension.  Cas wanted him.  HIM!  And by the dirty grin on his face and the molten look in his eyes, he wanted him bad.  
   
“What are you gonna do to me?” Dean whispered, a cocky grin slipping.  
   
Cas got onto his knees, his nails raking up his inner thighs.  “I’m gonna take care of this raging situation in your pants.”  He ran his hand up his hard cock, making Dean’s head tip back.  
   
“Please,” Dean whispered.  
   
“Mmm,” Cas purred.  
   
Dean could hardly hold still as Cas undid his belt.  His suit jacket was pushed away, and his shirt shoved up.  His chest heaved harder as he felt his pants being opened and his skin alerted to the chilly air of the room.  
   
A long, rumbling groan escaped him as Cas’ warm, wet mouth enveloped him steady and whole.  
   
“Fuck!” He moaned, his head coming up to see Cas on his knees between his legs, sucking his dick.  He was so hard already.  So stimulated.  It wasn’t going to take much.  
   
He ran his fingers through the silky hair on his head.  He loved touching his hair.  He had always wanted to.  And now he was allowed to.  He fisted his hands, receiving a rumbling moan in return.  
   
“Cas!”  His boss.  His BOSS was on his knees, sucking his dick.  Bobby was going to kill him!  Castiel Novak was sucking his dick better than anyone ever had!  
   
His head fought a battle between dropping back in languid ecstasy and wanting to watch.  He had Cas on his knees.  
   
Exhilaration and lust zipped through him, building a spiral he could not control.  
   
“Cas, I’m gonna come if you don’t stop.”  
   
“No’ ‘toppin’” Cas mumbled around his cock.  He swooned at the slide of the man’s tongue.  His dick felt like it was being worshiped.  
   
“Cas!” He warned, his hands coming away from Cas’ head so he could easily pull away, but he didn’t, only moving faster.  He growled and fought to not cry out as he came hard, Cas’ mouth engulfing him so completely.  He came, his hips lifting in a blinding moment of bliss.  
   
“I -” Dean panted, squirming in overstimulation as Cas pulled off him, sitting back on the floor.  Dean sagged in the chair, eyes closed.  “I love you.  I gotta.  I know I do.  Cas...” He frowned, his thoughts swirling in a fog.  “What’s happening to us?”  
   
Cas, sprawled on the floor, sighed.  “I don’t know.  But this house has to be what’s wrong.  It always is.  Right?  The ghosts.  The fourth-floor.  I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m glad I’m with you.”  
   
Dean lifted his head, looking down at Cas.  Well, that wasn’t exactly an ‘I love you too’, but he knew, deep down, it was there.  And why was that so easy to think? This should be freaking him out.  But it wasn’t.  
   
Perhaps feeling Dean’s stare, Cas sat up, looking at him.  “I...” he licked his lips, glancing down with a blush coloring his cheeks.  “I love you too.”  
   
Dean grinned.  A part of him inflated with joy inside.  “We better go.  Weren’t we supposed to be somewhere?”  
   
“Yes,” Cas said, getting to his feet to retrieve and put on the rest of his suit.  “A spec meeting.”  
   
“Right,” Dean nodded.  He looked around at the guest room again in curiosity.  Maybe he was under some sort of spell.  Maybe the house was actually as barren and in as much disrepair as he remembered, but he wasn’t seeing it that way.  It was disconcerting...yet he couldn’t seem to care as much as he suspected he should.  He shook off the feeling as he and Cas headed back downstairs.  
   
   
*******************************************  
   
   
Dean and Cas had taken off, leaving Sam and Gabe to deal with a string of staff coming to tell them details about the wedding that had just happened and things about upcoming weddings.  
   
He and Gabe nodded and smiled through all of it as the majority of the staff began leaving.  Sam felt out of touch.  This was all starting to bother him.  Something was...wrong.  
   
“The ballroom is locked and ready for next time,” a staff member said, giving them a wave.  
   
“Thank you,” Gabe called, his eyes a little narrowed.  He bet Gabe was feeling as lost as he was.  It was written all over his face.  
   
Sam stood at the dining room window, staring out back.  “What is Rufus doing?”  
   
Gabe joined him, staring out the window in wonder.  “He’s your guy.  I should hope you know why he’s digging a trench in my backyard.”  
   
Sam rubbed a hand across his mouth.  Everything felt so disjointed and off.  “I guess he’s digging up that clay pipe.  I just...I kinda thought he did that already.  And why would he do it at night?”  
   
Gabe shrugged.    
   
They watched the backhoe dig up another section of fresh grass, headlights making the job barely visible.  
   
“Should we go stop him?” Gabe asked, looking up at him.  
   
Sam pulled his eyes away from the strange sight, looking down at Gabe.  “I’m sure he has a good reason.”  He shrugged, Gabe shrugged back at him.  They grinned at each other.  He found it hard to care about much of anything.  He was tired.  But more than that, he was intrigued by Gabe.  From what he could remember, they were dating, and Sam always felt a little whisked away when he was with Gabe.  He did that.  He made him feel like he was the very bright and special center of their own universe.  
   
“I can’t find the house plans,” Gabe said, walking back to the hutch to dig in the bottom drawer again.  “Where would they be?”  
   
Sam sighed, raking a hand back through his hair.  “Who knows.  I’m so confused.”  
   
Gabe turned to him quickly, eyes lighting up.  “It’s like on Star Trek when Q screws with the crew’s minds!”  
   
Sam fought a grin.  
   
Star Trek?  
   
Seeing Sam wasn’t following him, Gabe waved his hand, “Okay, like in Stargate when they accidentally walk into an alternate reality!”  
   
“I don’t even know what show that is,” Sam smirked, crossing his arms over his chest in amusement.  
   
“No?” Gabe shook his head.  “Richard Dean Anderson?  Michael Shanks?  No?  Okay.  Like in Battlestar Galactica when the red dress chick makes you see shit that isn’t even really there.”  
   
“I had no idea you were such a sci-fi nerd,” Sam grinned, thinking Gabe adorable.  As always.  
   
“Sam!  I have a point!  Okay...not sci-fi.  Um...oh! It’s like when Alice fell down the rabbit hole into a strange land!”  
   
“We didn’t fall.  Did we?”  
   
“No!”  Gabe paced a circle in the room.  “Sometimes you really remind me of Cassie.  My point is...” He stopped, hands on his hips.  
   
Sam tipped his head, waiting for Gabe to find his point.    
   
“What was my point?” Gabe asked.  
   
“Something about falling down a rabbit hole and LSD,” Sam offered.  
   
“Right!” He snapped his fingers.  “Alternate reality.  We’re in some kind of alternate reality.  This is my house.  I remember it!  But...it’s like we’re in the future!  It’s like Back To The Future, only I don’t remember getting picked up by a fucking DeLorean at any point in time.”  
   
Sam closed his eyes.  Gabe was incredibly creative.  Mischievous.  Intelligent.  And hilariously adorable.  But this was way beyond his scope of norm.  “Gabe.  You don’t seriously think we are in an alternate reality.  Do you?”  
   
Gabe shrugged, eyes wide.  “You explain the house then!”  
   
Sam looked around at the dining room.  It was so Gabriel.  And yet...there was no explanation to when it had been remodeled.  The last time he was in here, they were still sitting on boxes, besides Gabe and his throne.  
   
“I don’t know.  Maybe this is one big prank Gabe.  You’re awfully good at them.”  
   
“Me?” Gabe pointed at his own chest, “You think I can pull something THIS big off?”  
   
Sam frowned, scrubbing a hand through his hair.  “I don’t know.  Look, the workers are all leaving.  Let’s just go up to our rooms, get out of these suits and find Dean and Cas and figure this out.”  
   
Gabe’s shoulders sagged as he breathed out.  “Okay.  But I’m tellin’ ya, we fell in a rabbit hole.”  
   
They went through the empty foyer and up the stairs.  Gabe’s attention was caught at the top of the stairs to another dining room.  Sam followed him, staring around the room.  
   
“I have another throne,” Gabe whispered in awe.  
   
“What the hell,” Sam stammered slowly.  “Gabe, I found the house plans.”  
   
On the wall, in thick, ornate frames, the house plans were hung as if they were something to be celebrated.  They weren’t crisp and clean either.  They were messy, written on.  Paint splattered.  Stained.  
   
“Dean JUST yelled at me yesterday for that coffee ring I left on there.  That was like...yesterday.  How...”  
   
“Sam, the pool is already sketched out.”  
   
Sam came to look at the fourth-floor plan.  Gabe was right.  Notes for the pool and hot tubs were there.  “Look,” he pointed to a green highlighted line. “Secret hall?  What’s that?  Why does this little room say, ‘The Cage’?”  
   
Chills ran down Sam’s arms.  
   
“Fourth-floor.  The ghosts,” Gabe whispered, stepping closer to Sam.  “What if a ghost messed with us?”  
   
A cold wash flooded Sam.  Time loss.  The house.  Something was definitely wrong.  And he didn’t believe in Fairy Tales, Star Trek, or Lewis Carroll and his acid-tripping rabbit holes.  The best he could come up with was that...  
   
He gasped for a breath.  
   
“Oh shit!”  
   
Gabe looked up at him in concern, a hand quickly rubbing his back.  “What?”  
   
“Oh God...” it was the only thing that made sense.  
   
“What?” Gabe asked.  
   
“Gabe...what if we’re dead?”  
   
“What?” Gabe scoffed.  “That’s -”  
   
“We’re in the house but the house is different!”  Sam staggered away a step, his mind spinning.  “What if we died!  And we’re stuck here like the ghosts on the fourth-floor!”  
   
“Sam!” Gabe stepped back from him, shaking his head.  “We aren’t dead.”  
   
“How do you know?” Sam demanded.  “The house -”  
   
Gabe turned, picked up a peacock figurine off the buffet and tossed it at Sam.  The weight of it thudded into his chest, its sharp angles digging in as he quickly cradled it to catch it.  “Gabe!”  
   
“You caught it.  Not dead.”  
   
Sam looked at the peacock.  Okay...maybe.  
   
“It so figures you’d Patrick Swayze my Marty McFly,” Gabe scoffed.    
   
“Oh yeah?” Sam sat the figurine down a little sharper than he meant to.  “In Ghost, they move things.  Like this.” Sam pushed the peacock, sliding it a foot across the buffet.  “But you were saying?  The DeLorean is where, exactly?”  
   
Gabe shoved his hands in his pockets.  “I’m not dead.  Neither are you.”  
   
Sam paced in a circle.  “You’ve been hearing ghosts above your room for weeks now Gabe.  I think...I think we’re the ghosts now.”  
   
Gabe shook his head, fighting a sad look.  
   
Sam rushed over to hug him tight.  The fact that he was solid in his arms reassured him.  He smelled the top of his head, smelling apricot shampoo and a hint of sugar cookie body wash.  
   
“If we’re dead,” he said against the silky strands of his hair, “I’m glad I’m with you.”  
   
Gabe’s hug tightened.  He swiped away at a tear as he pulled back from Sam.  “I don’t want to be dead.  I had plans.  I was finally getting my life back!  Working with you, with Cassie, with Dean!  These have been the best months of my life so far and...that’s it?  It’s over?”  
   
Sam shook his head.  “Maybe I’m wrong!  Maybe...we’ve been abducted by aliens or whatever!”  
   
Gabe scoffed again.  “Everyone knows there’s no such thing as aliens.”  He sighed sadly.  “Come on Samsquatch.  Let’s go find our rooms.”  
   
Sam took Gabe’s hand in his.  He loved how warm it felt in his own.  They left the peacock-throned dining room, crossing the stretch of hallway that was open to the foyer below.  The railing had been replaced in one section.  Whoever did it had done a beautiful job.  They passed several rooms, seeing Buddy lying on the floor in front of a door marked ‘Guest room 4’.  
   
The pair exchanged a look as Buddy got to his feet, wagging his tail.  “What are you doing here, boy?” Sam asked, petting the dog’s head.  
   
Buddy sat in front of the door.  
   
“Guarding the two inside there, I’d say,” Gabe smirked.  
   
Sam heard a moan that sounded distinctly like Dean, followed by another moan.  It had to be Cas.  
   
“Okay,” Sam summed up quickly.  
   
“Yeah, moving on!” Gabe laughed, the pair quickening their pace to get away from the sounds.  “Guess your brother finally -”  
   
“Guess so,” Sam cut him off, not needing any more visuals about his brother hooking up with Cas.  
   
“I called it,” Gabe chuckled.  
   
“I called it,” Sam argued.  
   
“Well, at least they figured out they liked each other.”    
   
   
 


	4. Useless Keys, Unexplained Poems, and Odd Renovations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe and Sam try to find their rooms.  Dean and Cas find their pants.  And they all find something very unexpected.  
>  

Chapter 4:  Useless Keys, Unexplained Poems, and Odd Renovations  
   
   
Sam ignored the thoughts about his brother and Cas hooking up.  He was worried.  Something strange was going on and Gabe didn’t seem to understand it any better than him.  
   
They passed through the second floor, staring around at the finished light fixtures, gleaming hardwood floors, and beautifully repaired woodwork.  “The house is beautiful.”  
   
“Yeah.  Who did all this?” Gabe marveled.  As they rounded the corner of the steps, they both froze.  At the top of the stairs was a door.  
   
“That’s new,” Gabe noted, his grip on Sam’s hand tightening slightly.  
   
“Yeah.”  They approached the door carefully, trying the knob.  “It’s locked.”  His eyes ran over the frame of the door.  It looked like it had always been here, woodwork and stain matching perfectly.  This was Dean’s work.  
   
He felt for the bulge of keys in his pocket, pulling them out.  “Maybe I have a key.”  
   
Gabe leaned against the railing, staring around.  “Twilight Zone.  We’re in an episode of the Twilight Zone.”  
   
Sam huffed, trying a fourth, then a fifth key.    
   
“Try the doorbell,” Gabe pointed.  
   
Sam had noticed the small pearl button but thought it so bizarre.  He pressed it, hearing a muted but lovely chime inside.  No one came.  
   
He went back to the keys, trying a sixth then seventh key.  
   
After all the keys had been tried; none working, they stared at each other.  
   
“I know the staircases in this place are whack, but I swear I’ve never been at this door before.”  Gabe turned, heading down the stairs again, Sam following.  
   
“How are we going to get to our rooms?” Sam wondered aloud.    
   
They went down the steps, past Buddy in the hall by the guest room, and tried the stairs by the kitchens.  They were always more reliable anyway.  They passed several staff members leaving for the night.  
   
“Goodnight Mr. Winchester!” Several of them called, waving.  
   
“Good night,” Sam waved, heading up to the third floor again.  
   
“Who was that?” Gabe asked.  “And why am I chopped liver, Mr. Winchester?  What about Mr. Novak?”  
   
Sam pulled his hands up with a bewildered look.  “No idea, Gabe.”  
   
The third-floor kitchen was quiet, clean, and dark.  
   
“Nice appliances!” Sam remarked, glancing around.  
   
“So. Fucking. Weird.”  Gabe turned, heading into the familiar hallway of the third-floor.  Except it wasn’t.  The shitty little patio bar he had put in the corner of the big room up here had been MAJORLY pimped.  Instead of the mismatched collection of wardrobes and patio furniture, there was a full mahogany bar, behind it were shelves of liquor.  There were squashy, leather couches, pool tables, and pictures all over the walls.  
   
Gabe felt like he should be more freaked out.  But honestly, he just couldn’t make any fucking sense of it all.  
   
Sam stared around hollowly, feeling the same.  
   
“Look.”  Sam pointed.  
   
More locked doors.  
   
“I hate this house,” Gabe muttered.  
   
Sam tried all his keys then turned back to Gabe.  He looked like he had just lost his left shoe down a drainage grate.  
   
“Come on,” Gabe groaned.  They went back to the kitchen steps.  They might as well go up.  God only knew what the freaky-ass haunted hallway looked like on the fourth floor.    
   
They arrived on the fourth-floor to a cluttered storage room.  But it too was different.  The piles of fabrics and crates of old odds and ends were gone.  The things stacked here were wedding decorations and supplies.  There were neatly stacked piles of table cloths in a variety of colors.  
   
They both turned, looking down the hall.  
   
“Dude,” Sam let out a relieved breath.  “I was expecting that creepy tricycle to be sitting there.”  
   
“Me too!” Gabe snorted a laugh.    
   
Instead of the hall of cluttered, dusty storage rooms, there was a huge indoor play area that looked like a toddler’s playground.  Across from it, where the storage rooms (including the creepy bedroom) had been, was a wide-open exercise gym.  
   
“I’m so confused,” Gabe whined.  
   
Sam, wanting to just make Gabe feel better, rallied a smile.  “At least it doesn’t look and feel like a haunted house anymore!”  He rubbed a calming hand down Gabe’s back.  He hoped Gabe didn’t think he was being too forward, touching him like this, but they were both feeling quite wiped out.  
   
“There’s another door,” Gabe pointed.  
   
Between the modern exercise room and the indoor playground for either a preschool or munchkins from the Wizard of Oz, sat a short hall with a beautiful burgundy door.  
   
It looked locked.  
   
“There’s a doorbell,” Sam grinned.  
   
“Yay,” Gabe deadpanned.  
   
The pair approached the door, feeling like they had already lost.  
   
Sam tried his keys again.  Certainly he didn’t just carry around keys that didn’t work anywhere!  
   
The eighth key slid in and turned with a clunk of the lock.  
   
“Finally,” they both muttered, walking through the door.  
   
“This looks different,” Sam said, taking only a tentative step into the hall.  
   
“Yeah,” Gabe agreed.  This section of the house, the fourth-floor wing, was empty for a long time.  The last he could recall, it was only accessible by the outside balcony door.  He and Sam had often snuck away to one of the rooms up here.  But now, the entire section had a warm, cozy feel.  It felt like they had left the grandeur of Kripke Manor outside the door and were now inside a home.  
   
“Wow,” Sam grinned, looking around as they passed a bedroom and followed a winding hallway.  “This is gorgeous.”  
   
“Hoooooly shit,” Gabe breathed low, side-stepping into Sam.  Sam looked over where Gabe was staring.  
   
His jaw dropped open.  
   
A picture on a nearby stand had both of them frozen in shock.  He and Gabe in suits.  Gabe was holding a little girl that looked to be a toddler.  On the finely papered wall behind the stand was a butterfly made of handprints with a poem above it.  
‘My Father’s Day is twice as nice  
With twice the hugs and twice the advice!  
One daddy for my right hand,  
One daddy for the left,  
In all the world, with all the dads, my daddies are the best!  
   
A picture of the same little girl smiling so preciously at the photographer hung next to it.  
   
“Sam?”  
   
“I have no fucking idea.”  They wandered further into the home, seeing things that were familiar and many things that were not.  
   
Another fog swept through Sam’s mind.  Everything dulled.  He had just been really worried about something, but he couldn’t remember what and he didn’t really care.  
   
They turned into an inviting looking kitchen with warm cherry cabinets and cream-colored granite counters.  
   
Sam couldn’t help feeling at home here.  
   
He looked over and saw Gabe pull a tub of ice cream out of the freezer.    
   
“I’m hungry,” Gabe remarked, rifling through drawers to pull out a spoon.  
   
“Yeah.  That looks good.”  He went to the same drawer, pulling out another spoon.  He should probably look for a bowl, but if he grinned enough, Gabe probably wouldn’t care.  He joined his friend and boss at the table holding up the spoon with a cute grin.  
   
Gabe swallowed a big mouthful of chocolate ripple, grinning.  “Want some?”  
   
Sam scooped a bite.  He knew Gabe liked him.  More than he should professionally.  But he was a total sucker for the guy.  Ever since he had shown up in his room in the middle of the night, scared and giving him some bullshit about hearing screaming and door slamming, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from wanting to be in Gabe’s orbit.  He was magnetic and ridiculous.  And it made Sam grin.  
   
“You got an awfully dopey grin, Sam Winchester.”  
   
Sam, realizing he was caught, blushed, busying himself with another scoop of ice cream.    
   
Gabe chuckled, nudging his foot under the table.  
   
Sam shook his head.  God, Gabe was such a flirt.  
   
Gabe swallowed another cold bite, his eyes catching Sam’s.  Their stares locked.  Sam was incredibly handsome.  No wonder Cassie liked him so damn much.  Along with his ridiculously sexy body, he had perfect hair, fantastic hands, a voice to curl up and die for, and a gorgeous smile.  And he was nice!  And funny!  
   
Seriously...who had THAT much going for them?  
   
So, of course, his brother would have a crush on him.  Fucking figures.  Gabe knew more than that though.  Cas might think he liked Sam, but he had caught him checking out Dean’s ass and acting, overall, like a six-year-old picking fights with him at recess.  Cassie might as well have smacked Dean in the playground and ran away, hoping to be chased but declaring Dean had cooties.  
   
It was fine.  Cassie was socially awkward as fuck sometimes.  But he had seen the way the pair looked at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking.  Problem was, where did Sam stand on the matter?  
   
Gabe cleared his throat, waiting for Sam to get his next bite.  “Soooo, I think Cassie has a bit of a crush on you.”  
   
Sam frowned.  “I, uh...I don’t think so,” he stammered, glancing away.  
   
Gabe smirked.  “He does, doesn’t he?”  
   
Sam met his gaze.  “He might have.  When we first got here.  But...” Sam broke out into an amused grin, huffing a laugh.  “I think he likes my brother.”  
   
Gabe nodded.  “I’m like 96% sure he does.”  
   
Sam’s grin softened.  “Dean is -”  
   
“I don’t really care about Dean,” Gabe cut in, leaning closer.  “What I’m wondering is, whether it bothers you that Cassie likes Dean.”  
   
Sam tipped his head, eyes really studying Gabe.  “I...like Cas.  But not like that.  I mean...he’s my boss,” Sam said, seeming to test the waters.  
   
Gabe licked his lips, leaning more forward, touching his spoon to Sam’s, which he was holding in the container of ice cream, completely interrupted in his snacking.  “But are you interested in Cas?” Gabe asked more directly, his spoon sliding down Sam’s with a slow, metallic scrape.  
   
Sam’s face flushed and he blinked, licked his own lips and met his gaze again.  “Not at all.”  
   
Both spoons clattered to the table as Gabe closed the gap, kissing Sam.  
   
Sam stood abruptly, his chair falling to the floor as he grabbed Gabe up, sitting him on the nearby counter.  
   
“Oh shit,” Gabe laughed.  
   
Sam grinned back at him, searching his eyes.  “I shouldn’t be doing this!”  He devoured Gabe in another kiss.  
   
Pulling apart for air, breathing heavy, Sam covered his mouth, looking shocked.  “Shit!  I shouldn’t have done that!  You’re my boss!”  
   
“I’m just a guy eating ice cream, wishing this insanely hot guy would fucking kiss me again.”  
   
Sam choked a laugh, looking shocked.  “But...”  
   
“Do I look like the kinda guy who gives a shit about roles?”  
   
Sam studied him again and closed his arms around him more slowly, kissing him so good that Gabe’s toes were curling.  
   
   
****************************************************  
   
   
   
Dean opened the bedroom door, looking at Buddy who sat there staring at him.  “Hey, Buddy.”  
   
The dog whimpered a little, looking down the hall.  
   
“There you are!”  Charlie came down the hall from the direction of the foyer landing.  “I’ve been looking for you.  Rufus says -”.  She frowned as Cas came out of the room behind him looking a bit rumpled.  “Rufus caught some girl outside.  Says she was snooping around the shed.”  She looked between the two men and grinned.  “Did I just interrupt a quickie?”  
   
“No!” Both men lied.  Cas pulled the door shut quickly, hiding the rumpled bed.  
   
Charlie gave Dean a meaningful look.  Dean rolled his eyes stepping away.  Okay, yes, he had just got a blowjob from their boss.  But...Cas was different.  Cas was totally on board, and he wouldn’t ruin everything this time!  
   
“A girl?” Cas asked, clearing his throat, barely pulling off the change of topic.  
   
“Yeah.  Rufus caught her sneaking around the shed, and she pulled a knife on him.  
   
“What?” Dean blanched.  “Is he okay?”  
   
“Um...”. Charlie frowned, trying to remember.  “I think so?”  
   
They ran down the stairs, out the front door and along the driveway, taking the path that branched off the driveway to the shed.  Rufus was standing in the flood light outside the big shed.  A girl nervously shifting from one foot to another.  
   
They panted to a halt, taking the scene in.  Sam and Gabe came a few minutes behind them, Charlie having called them too.  
   
“What’s going on?” Cas demanded, stepping to Rufus’ side, looking at the young woman.  “Who are you?”  
   
She shrank back a step at his authoritative voice.  
   
“Call my dad!” Her eyes darted around nervously.  
   
“She was breaking into the shed,” Rufus spat.  
   
“I was trying to find my dad!  DAD!” She yelled, near to tears.  
   
“Alright, alright,” Dean cut in, glaring at Cas and Rufus.  “Calm down you two.  I don’t think nosy Nellie is going to beat you up.”  
   
“She pulled a knife on me!” Rufus argued, whipping out a dagger the length of Dean’s forearm.  
   
“Whoa!” Dean held his hands up at the three of them.  “Just...take it easy.”  
   
“I found it in that creepy house!” The girl yelled.  “Where’s my dad?  What did you do to him?!”  
   
They all exchanged confused looks.  
   
Sam, worried at all of their behavior, cut into the fray, pushing Dean back a step gently.  “Everybody calm down.”  He turned to the young woman patiently.  “What’s your name?  Maybe we can call someone for you.”  
   
The young woman looked near to tears.  “My name’s Krissy.  I don’t know where I am.”  She wavered on her feet, a strange look crossing her face.  She relaxed and looked up at all the men with a suspicious look.  “Who are you?”  
   
The men exchanged confused looks.  
   
“Let’s get her inside and call the cops.  They can help her get home,” Cas suggested.  
   
Rufus looked toward the barn with an odd tilt to his head.  “When did the barn get rebuilt?”  
   
They all turned, looking at...Dean had expected to see the crumbled remains of the barn.  Instead, a two-story building with lights on the second floor made his jaw drop.  
   
“When did we rebuild the barn?” Sam asked slowly.  
   
“We didn’t,” Dean confirmed.  “What the hell?”  
   
Krissy stepped closer to Sam, staring at the building.  She looked up at him.  She looked to be about twenty, but she acted like she was twelve.  He put an arm around her.  “Let’s see if there’s a phone in there you can use.”  
   
Three of them pulled out cell phones.  
   
“Oh, yeah,” Sam shook his head, pulling his own out.  “Here.”  
   
She fumbled with it, finally getting to the right screen to dial her father.  
   
“Dad?  Where are you?”  She looked up at Sam.  “He says he’s driving.  He’s in Kentucky.”  She listened as her dad said something.  She looked up at Sam with an odd look.  “Yeah!  This is his phone.  Do you know Sam?”  She listened again.  “Yeah.”  She gave Rufus a nervous look and whispered, “One of them has a knife though.”  
   
Sam gave Rufus a bitchface.  Rufus looked at the dagger like it had just sprouted out of thin air.  He glanced around, handing it to Cas.  
   
“I don’t want it!” Cas said hastily, handing it to Dean, who took it, turning it over in his hands.  It had a weighty heft and a nice balance.  
   
“Now they’re passing it around.  When will you be here?” Krissy whispered hastily.  She nodded and handed the phone to Sam.  
   
“H-hello?” Sam said into it.  Sam immediately looked like he was being yelled at by Bobby.  
   
Dean wondered idly where Bobby was.  
   
“Yes sir.  No, no harm will come to your daughter.  Right.  I...okay.”  Sam ended the call.  “He, uh, wants us to take good care of his daughter,” Sam announced to the crowd.  “And he definitely has that angry dad vibe going.  He sounds mad.”  
   
Krissy rolled her eyes.  “Who ARE you people?”  
   
“Fantastic,” Dean muttered.  “Now we’re babysitting.  Come on, Hannah Montana, Mmmbop your way down to the barn with us.  We need to figure out what the deal is with this barn.”  
   
“Whatever,” Krissy scoffed.  “Do you guys work with my dad?”  
   
“Nope,” Sam assured.  “I don’t think so.”  
   
Krissy shook her head, still confused.  She followed Sam, skirting away from Rufus and Dean.  
   
Dean held onto the knife, not having anywhere to stash it at the moment.  
   
   
   
************************************  
   
   
Gabe followed the others into the barn.  It didn’t quite smell like the barns he had been in.  Yes, he could ride a horse.  Not as well as these two cowboys, Sam and Dean, they had working for them now, but yes, he knew his way around a barn.  
   
“Damn, this is nice!” Gabe said, looking around at the half stone walls, clean stone floors, and empty stalls.  
   
“No horses,” Cas commented.  “How did this happen to the barn?”  
   
“No idea,” Dean muttered, laying the knife on the edge of one of the stalls.  
   
Rufus looked around, perplexed.  
   
Sam slid open a door at the end of the stalls,  “Hey, there’s Rums -  AHHHHH!!!”  
   
Sam slammed the door shut, back against it, eyes wide as saucers.  
   
Dean laughed hard.  “What the hell?”  Dean doubled over with laughter.  “I have NEVER heard you scream like that!!!”  
   
“There’s a lion in there!” Sam panted, arms and legs splayed wide against the door.  
   
“Shut up,” Gabe laughed, slapping a hand against Sam’s stomach teasingly, laughing as well.  
   
“No!  Really!”  Sam’s head tipped back against the door.  “I’m losing my mind, aren’t I?”  
   
“Definitely,” Dean laughed, shoving his brother aside, sliding the door open again.  
   
Gabe stared into the huge riding arena, Rumsfeld looking up at him with his head cocked to the side.  And a lion slowly meandered across the arena toward him.  
   
“AAAHHHHHH!!!!” Gabe screamed.  
   
Dean started laughing, tears already in his eyes until his jaw dropped in shock.   “AAAAHHHHHH!!!!” He screamed as he slammed the door shut, Gabe barely moving out of the way in time.  
   
Rufus was looking at all three of them like they had lost their minds.  Krissy took three big, wary steps backwards.  
   
Cas rolled his eyes.  “Knock it off.”  
   
Gabe stared at his brother.  “You gotta look in there, Cassie!”  
   
Castiel stepped up to the door, Dean wiping a hand down his face.  He looked shaken and mortified that he too had screamed like a little girl.  Frowning in disbelief, Cas peeked into the arena when Dean opened the door an inch.  
   
Cas jerked back from the door.  Charlie peeked in as well, backing up, covering her mouth with a hand, she gave a short, hysterical giggle.  “That’s a real fecking lion!”  
   
They all stared at each other in shock and disbelief.  
   
“We have to save Rumsfeld!” Dean squeaked.  He didn’t fucking squeak.  But he did just totally fucking squeak.  
   
Castiel looked like he was summoning his courage to go save his dog when they all turned to the sharp sound of a shotgun being cocked.    
   
“Step away from the lion.”  
   
“Ellen?” Cas and Gabe gasped, shocked to see her there.  
   
“Go on,” she bobbed the end of the gun to the right, motioning for all of them to step away.  “Out of the barn.  Where’s Bobby?”  
   
“Rumsfeld is in there!” Cas yelled, pointing at the door.  
   
“I know,” Ellen said calmly, directing them with the gun again.  “He’s fine.  He and the lion get along just fine.”  
   
“I’m dreaming!” Gabe laughed.  “This can’t be real!”  
   
“I promise if I have to shoot you, you’ll see how real this is,” Ellen said, no hint of joking in her voice.  
   
“Shshshit,” Gabe swore, hands up like the others and stepping backward through the barn.  They all backed out into the night.  She stopped just inside the barn door.  “Where’s Bobby?”  
   
“I don’t know,” Dean answered her.    
   
She gave him a worried, hard look.  “Y’all go back to the house.  Help is coming.  Go to the house and wait in the...running room.”  
   
“The running room,” Gabe muttered.  
   
“I don’t want to hurt any of you, but I will,” she threatened.  
   
They all backed up, heading into the house.  None of them knew what to say or what to do.  
   
Gabe didn’t know Sam all that well, but he had the insane notion to hold his hand.  The man had big, beautiful hands.  He wondered what the man would do if he just snagged his hand.  He licked his lips and took Sam’s hand in a rush of bravery.  
   
Sam gave him a startled look but gripped his hand back.  
   
“There’s, uh, a lion in my barn,” Gabe said, feeling baffled.  
   
Sam nodded.  
   
“And Ellen had a gun,” Cas added, frowning.  
   
“Dude, she’s scary.  I’m goin’ in the house and staying there,” Dean added, catching the sight of Sam and Gabe holding hands.  
   
Gabe blushed again, then gripped Sam’s hand even tighter.  He knew damn well Dean had a thing for his broody brother.  Dean only smirked, pulling open the huge front door to the manor.  
   
They went inside slowly.  
   
“Whoa,” Gabe breathed.  
   
Cas and Dean looked just as dumbfounded as he felt.  
   
“Um,” Charlie butted in, Rufus stepping through the door behind her.  
   
“When did the foyer get finished?” Rufus asked, loud and uncertain.    
   
It was like someone had snapped their fingers and all the work was done.  The manor was perfect.  
   
“This place is awesome,” the girl with them commented.  Gabe couldn’t remember her name.  Maybe she was a friend of one of them.  The girl stepped in further, turning to the group.  “Have you seen my dad?”  
   
   
   
Castiel had learned several things.  
   
1\. Buddy loved chasing balls in the running room.  
2\. Gabe and Sam were making out in the corner.  So, yeah, they were a thing.  
3\. Charlie Bradbury was an instigator of hilarious hi-jinx.  
4\. Rufus Turner could roller blade like a badass.  
   
   
***************************************************  
    
   
   
Garth showed up at 1am.  Ellen had rung him until Bess had literally growled at him to answer his phone.  
   
He had thought Rufus and Charlie had been acting odd at the house when they were there to work.  Now that Ellen had explained what she knew of the situation with a cursed box showing up, he had a better grasp on what was happening.  
   
He would have thought Ellen had lost her mind, but Charlie and Rufus had been acting odd at his house.  The biggest clue had been that Rufus seemed to have no idea he and Bess were werewolves.  
   
So strange.  
   
Especially since all the hunters, including the Winchesters (all four of them), had made such a big ole fuss about it when it had happened.  
   
The second clue was that the alarm system wasn’t working.  It was no wonder.  The two had been so distracted and unorganized while working.  
   
He pulled up to the barn, shutting the engine off.  Ellen had asked him to come upstairs, so he did.    
   
“Garth,” she greeted him at the door, yanking him inside.  He yelped, immediately being shooshed by her, and when Ellen said to shoosh, by golly, you shooshed!  
   
“Stay here with the kids,” she said, tucking a gun into her jacket, a knife strapped to her ankle.  
   
“Gee wiz, Ellen, you look like you’re going to war!”  
   
“I am,” she said harshly, checking the ammo in her pocket.  “Someone is messing with my family.”  
   
Garth gulped, stepping back, out of her way.  
   
“I’ll be back.  Keep an ear out for the kids.  They’re sleeping.  Hopefully they stay that way and have their parents back in the morning.”  
   
Garth nodded, locking the door as she left.  
   
He glanced around the house, wondering if Loki ever came up here.  Just the thought of the large cat made his wolf-side ripple with discontent.  He started peeking into all the rooms to be sure there were only humans in the apartment.  
   
Yep, three sleeping little ones.  Check, check, and check.  
   
No cats of any size.  
   
   
*************************************************

 

Ellen approached the house like a one-woman army.  Jody was an hour away and Lee was three hours away.  Bobby hadn’t answered his phone since they separated.  
   
She came inside the manor, locking the doors, locking them in.  Too bad there were seven more doors to secure.  
   
She headed for the office, finding it empty.  She worked her way around to the locked reference section.  There were books and papers all over the reference table.  Someone had rifled through the supply closet.  But no one was there.  She secured the back door, the solarium door, the patio door.  It was too quiet.  
   
When she stepped into the supply room with the basement door in it, her stomach sank.    
   
It was open.  
   
“Shit.”  
   
She called Jody.  
   
“Hey, Ellen,” Jody said loud over the roar of her engine as she sped toward the manor.  
   
“I’m in the manor.  The basement door is open.”  
   
“No Bobby yet?”  
   
“No.”  
   
“Damn.”  
   
“I’m goin’ down, Jody.  Reception is terrible down there.  If I don’t call back in fifteen minutes, you know where to hunt for me.”  
   
“Lee has that shapeshifter down there!” Jody reminded her.  
   
“I know.”  She hung the phone up, tucking it in her pocket as she headed down the steps, flashlight and gun in her hands.  The lights were on, like every light in the damn place.  No one had shut down for the night.  
   
She crept down the steps, searching all the hidden nooks and crannies the best she could.  
   
“Bobby!” She called.  
   
She continued through the first room, her gaze sweeping as efficiently as a cop’s.  Jody had taught them all so much.  
   
But apparently not enough.  
   
“Bobby!  Dean!  Sam!”  
   
“Ellen!”  
   
Her heart skipped a beat as she actually gulped at the sound of her husband’s voice.  “Bobby!”  
   
“I’m in the friggin’ cell!” He yelled.  
   
She stopped in front of the bars, staring at him incredulously.  “What are you doing in there?”  
   
Bobby frowned at her.  “Oh, just writin’ my memoirs and makin’ margaritas.”  
   
“Smartass,” she smirked, fighting with the rusted lock.  
   
“Bout the only smart thing I got,” Bobby groused.  
   
She left the lock, checking on the shapeshifter.  He looked up at her, starting to ask her to let him out.  “Save it,” she snapped, heading back to Bobby.  “Well, at least they didn’t let him out.”  
   
“Oh, Benny and Charlie thought about it,” Bobby assured her.  
   
It took some elbow grease, a hammer, and two arguments, to budge the stupid lock open.  
   
Bobby sighed with relief as he came out of the cell, hugging and kissing her.  
   
“Come on, we have a house full of forgetful idjits ta wrangle,” Bobby groused.  
   
“And some kind of monster to kill for attacking Kripke Manor,” Ellen added.  
   
“It was a cursed object,” Bobby explained with a sigh.  “Means we’re hunting one of my least favorite monsters.”  
   
“Witches?” Ellen asked.  
   
“I don’t think so.  Made by a witch, yeah, but most likely used by just a human.”  
   
“Well.  Don’t that beat all,” Ellen shook her head in disgust.  
   
 


	5. Beer Runs, Bars, and A Dog With No Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long, confusing night at Kripke Manor winds down to an end. We get to see how the guys may have handled meeting each other had they met under different circumstances.  
> Meanwhile, their hunter friends rally around to get to the bottom of things.

Castiel had learned several things.  
   
1\. The guy with the green eyes was totally checking him out.  Gabe had confirmed it.  
2\. The house he and Gabe had inherited was epic AF.  
3\. They had a ballroom.  And an elevator.  And a fourth-floor fucking pool.    
4\.   Men playing volleyball in a pool was better than anything he had ever seen on television.  
   
   
   
Gabe lounged back on a chair, arms behind his head.  “This is the greatest fucking day of my life!”  
   
Castiel sat on the edge of the pool, his legs in the water from his calves down.  “We aren’t lawyers anymore.”  He turned to his brother.  “We have a mansion!”  
   
Gabe lowered his unneeded sunglasses to perch on the end of his nose.  “And eye candy to go with it.”  
   
Castiel looked across the pool at the two men hitting a volleyball back and forth.  Seventies rock music played over the sound system and Buddy was fast asleep just outside the door in a nice looking living room that the guy who walked them up here had said was Gabe’s living room.  
   
“I remember the funeral,” Cas said quietly.  “I remember the will reading.  But everything else is kind of a blur.  I was thinking this place was some kind of dump.  But it’s beautiful!”  
   
“Yeah!  Michael probably told us some bullshit about it.  He can go suck a rock.  Did you see the elevator?”  
   
“I did,” Cas grinned.  Gabe had made him ride it several times already.  
   
A girl with red hair and a guy with brown hair walked down the steps of the pool, joining the two men, playing volleyball.  
   
“How ya doin?”  The skinny guy watching over the pool yawned.  
   
Castiel looked up at him with a patient grin.  “Good.  Are you the pool attendant?”  
   
“No, I’m Garth, silly!”  The man shook his head with a huge grin.  “I told you, I’m a friend of yours.”  
   
Castiel frowned up at him.  “Where did we meet?”  
   
“Here,” Garth grinned, looking around the pool room.    
   
Castiel and the others had no clue that Jody had arrived, going through the house with Bobby to round them all up and entertain them with swimming.  
   
All those effected had been quarantined to Sam and Gabe’s section of the house with Garth playing shepherd.   Krissy and Rufus had been put to bed, Krissy in Grace’s room, Rufus in Sam and Gabe’s guest room.  Bess was with the children at the apartment.  Not that any of this mattered to any of the eight effected by the box.  He had corralled those that were awake into tiring themselves out in the pool.  Garth felt himself quite ingenious for his plan.    
   
Castiel stifled a yawn, pulling back as the volleyball splashed down in front of him.  
   
“Hit it back!” The red head called.  Castiel served the ball back with a grin, watching the crowd play a few more volleys before it landed in front of him again.  
   
“You might as well join us,” one of the men said, waving him over.  
   
Castiel slid into the warm water, wading through the chest high refreshment to join the side with fewer players.  He hit the ball into play, losing himself in the game.  When was the last time he played anything?  This was so much fun!  
   
Gabe canon-balled into the deep end a few moments later, joining his brother.  
   
Gabe tried to dunk him to hit the ball, but Cas easily fended him off, dunking him instead.  
   
The tallest of the group waded over to help Gabe resurface, splashing Cas to deflect him.  Castiel laughed, wiping his face off.  
   
“Hey!  Don’t I know you?” The man asked, tugging Gabe away from his reach, earning him a flirty grin from Gabe.  
   
Castiel looked at him.  Chiseled jawline, rich voice, brown eyes that held a sea of kindness in them.  “Sam?  Sam Winchester?”  
   
“Yeah!” Sam laughed, wading closer to shake his hand and push his hair out of his face.  “Man!  I haven’t seen you in years!”  
   
“Wow!  It’s so good to see you!”  Castiel couldn’t believe his luck!  
   
“Dean!  You remember Cas?  From Stanford?”  
   
Dean, looking much older, more filled out in all the right ways, and still beaming with boyish charm waded over to join them.  “Oh yeah,” he said slowly.  “I remember you.”  
   
Castiel felt himself blush against the lapping cool water.  Dean had been very handsome years ago.  Now, he was seasoned into something sinfully gorgeous.  “Ah, your brother.”  
   
Dean wiped a hand down over his face, openly checking him out, reminding Castiel that all he wore was swim trunks.  Surely Dean had matured since they last met.  Sam seemed happy to be with him.  
   
“It’s good to see you.  Both of you,” Castiel admitted.  “What brings you to...” Where were they again?  “Here?” He finished lamely.  
   
Sam and Dean exchanged quizzical looks.  “I don’t know,” Sam shrugged.  “Working on something in the area, I guess.”  
   
“How’ve you been?” Castiel asked, trying to curb his open curiosity for Dean.  
   
“Good!” Sam shrugged.  “So, did you become a lawyer, or did you get out of the family business?”  
   
Castiel sighed with a dreamy weight.  “I’m a lawyer.”  He shrugged back.  “I hate it but what can you do?”  
   
Sam fielded the volleyball, waving at Gabe who nodded back.  
   
“That’s my brother, Gabriel.  Gabriel, this is Sam and Dean Winchester.  Sam and I went to college together.”  
   
Gabe dipped into the water, passing through the three of them much like a mermaid.  Or an otter.  “Weeeellll, hello!”  
   
He popped up onto his feet, shaking Sam and Dean’s hands.  “No wonder Cassie didn’t want to come home from California!”  
   
Sam laughed, shaking his head.  “Cas and I were just friends.”  
   
Gabe raised an eyebrow flirtatiously.  “Good ta know.”  
   
Castiel, realizing Dean was looking at him, turned more toward him.  “And how have you been?”  
   
“Good,” Dean stammered.  “Yeah.  Just...ya know, workin’.”  
   
“Family business,” Cas nodded, noting the beautiful shape of his lips.  
   
Dean smirked.  “Any bars in this place?”  
   
Castiel glanced around the pool room.  There was a large, inviting hot tub, tables, lounge sections of couches and chairs.  A bin of children’s toys and water gear, and huge glass windows that told him it was night time.  
   
“I don’t know,” he said.  
   
Dean stepped closer to him.  “What’s with the goofy guy lifeguarding fully dressed?”  
   
Castiel wondered the same thing.  He stepped closer to Dean, speaking conspiratorially, “I don’t know.  He says we’re friends, but I’ve never met him.”  
   
Dean snorted a laugh, eyeing Cas a bit more openly.  “I bet he wants to be your friend.”  
   
Castiel rolled his eyes with a laugh.  “No.”  
   
Dean nodded toward the man, Castiel following his gaze.  The thin guy with a Howdy Doody smile gave him a wave.  
   
Castiel waved back, blushing again.  
   
“Somebody has a crush,” Dean teased.  
   
Castiel laughed, splashing him gently with water.    
   
“What?  Not who you were planning on taking back to your room tonight?” Dean teased again, splashing him back.  
   
“No!”  But if he was reading the man right, he just might end up taking Dean back to his room.  Wherever that was.  
   
Dean sunk down into the water, turning to pull Castiel’s attention away from the on-looker.  “Wanna go help me find us a bar in this place?”  
   
Castiel, self admittedly a rule follower, was feeling more relaxed than he had felt in a long time.  “Alright.”  
   
“Sweet,” Dean grinned, making Cas feel even more warm and fuzzy.  
   
They waded over to the others, who stopped playing, seeing they were up to something.  
   
“Charlie, Benny, this is Cas.  We’re gonna sneak out of here and find some liquor.  Distract Sergeant No Fun, would ya?”  
   
“That means yo’ comin’ BACK with the liquor, right?” Benny asked with a smirk.  
   
“Yes, doofus,” Dean splashed his friend, one, for calling him out on sneaking off with a guy, and two, for thinking he wouldn’t come back.  
   
“I’m on it!” Charlie giggled.  “Bring me something fruity!”  
   
“Me too!” Gabe added.  “How ‘bout you, sailor?” He asked, winking at Sam.  
   
Sam blushed, tipping his chin up to Dean.  “Beer.”  
   
“Beer’s good,” Benny added.  
   
“You got it,” Dean laughed, edging toward the corner of the pool closest to the doors.  
   
Charlie hopped out the opposite end, asking the guy watching them like a stalker to explain something about the hot tub.  
   
When the guy’s back was to them, Dean tapped Cas on the elbow to get out of the pool.  They got out as silently as they could, grabbed towels and slipped through the doors.  
   
They both looked down in surprise as a German Shepherd greeted them at the door.  
   
“Hello there, dog,” Cas greeted it, walking around it.  
   
“Whose dog is that?” Dean asked.  
   
“No idea,” Cas said, moving through the room quickly.  
   
The dog started to whimper, following them.  
   
“Stay, dog!” Dean whispered.  
   
The dog gave them an unsure look, glanced at the door and sat, watching them leave.  
   
They both giggled as they moved through the unfamiliar halls until they found a door.  
   
“Yeah!” Dean encouraged him, nudging him to open the door and sneak out.  
   
Castiel led him through the door, and left it open a crack so they could get back with their goods.  
   
Castiel shivered.  “Shoulda grabbed clothes!”  
   
“Come on,” Dean laughed, running ahead.  “We’ll warm up if we jog!”  
   
Castiel chuckled, catching up to him as they jogged past an exercise room and a play area until they got to a set of steps.  
   
“This place is huge,” Dean remarked, glancing into a dark kitchen at the bottom of the steps.  
   
“Look!” Castiel pointed, spotting a bar.  The lights were on but there was no one at the bar.  
   
“Shit,” Dean stopped in his tracks.  “I forgot to grab my wallet.”  
   
Cas looked at him in dismay.  “So did I!”  
   
They edged further into the room, huddling into their towels.  The pool tables sat untouched, the TV off, and no music on the stereo.  
   
“Looks closed,” Castiel noted.  
   
“Yeeeaah,” Dean mused, staring at the bottles behind the bar.  “We could leave a note!”  
   
Castiel met his mischievous eyes, unable not to grin.  “Okay!”  
   
Castiel took a seat on one of the stools, grabbing a napkin and pen to leave a note while Dean went around the bar to start pulling bottles down.  
   
“Whiskey,” he said, sitting the bottle on the counter.  
   
Castiel got the pen working, listing what they were taking.  
   
“Vodka, Kinky Blue, two six packs of Sam Adams Oktoberfest.”  
   
As Dean closed the cooler under the bar, sitting the second pack of beer on top, he noticed a box tucked along the side marked, ‘Stay out Dean’.  Well, that might as well be an invitation.  He pulled the box forward and opened it.  He was shocked to see a bottle of lube and some other toiletries like a comb, chapstick, and a handful of lollipops.  His eyes lifted to the absolutely gorgeous and shirtless guy sitting at the bar.  Cas.  He knew him from somewhere.  He just couldn’t remember where.  But when those blue eyes lifted from the list he was making, locking onto his with all the electricity of a storm, he pocketed the lube.  No condoms, but hey, he was pretty damn lucky to stumble across lube.  
   
Castiel finished the list and wrote under it, ‘Charge to the room of Castiel Winchester’.  
   
He frowned down at the napkin.  
   
Dean laughed.  “Damn, trying to tell me something, Cas?  Either you wanna have my babies or we’re related!”  
   
“We are not related,” Castiel stated factually.  
   
Dean laughed.  
   
Castiel frowned up at him, wondering why he had even written that.  He scratched out Winchester and wrote Novak.  
   
“Novak,” Dean read.  “Sounds like a rich name.  You some kind of rich guy?”  
   
Castiel eyed him thoughtfully.  “I make very good money at my family’s law firm.”  
   
“No shit!” Dean laughed.  “Well, add two shots of top shelf Woodford’s Reserve!”  
   
Castiel added it with a grin.  He slid the note aside as Dean slid him a shot.  The amber liquor balanced just at the edge of the tiny shot glass.  “You a bartender?” Cas asked, smiling at Dean’s grin.  
   
“I am tonight,” Dean answered, his voice already sounding like whiskey.  
   
They touched their glasses together, throwing back the shots, then clunking the glasses onto the bar with a sigh.  
   
They both exchanged another lengthy stare.  
   
“Wanna take this party somewhere a little more private?” Dean asked.  
   
Castiel glanced around the large room, then back to Dean.  “Yes.”  
   
Dean grinned, grabbing the bottle of whiskey, sliding it along the bar as he came around the end of it.  The dull slide of glass on polished wood acted much like the drag of nails along his bare skin.  His libido cranked up five notches watching the man approach him, wet trunks clinging to his muscular legs, bare, tanned shoulders and abs that were only partially blocked by the towel slung over one shoulder.  And nothing was hiding the hard dick in those trunks.  
   
“Damn,” Cas muttered as he stood.  
   
Dean strode right into him, kissing him.  
   
Castiel gripped his hips, opening to the kiss with abandon.  Dean pressed him back against the bar with a predatory shove.  Who cared who saw them!  They were adults!  
   
“Find me a bed,” Cas whispered, tangled into the kiss.  “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”  
   
Dean pulled back, glancing around.  Still the room was empty.  Looking relieved, Dean took him by the hand and they left the bar, heading out into the strange hotel to find a room.  
   
“I have a room,” Dean whispered as they headed for the stairs.  “I just can’t remember where it is.”  
   
“Likewise,” Cas agreed, wondering just how much the pair of them had drunk.  He could taste the smooth whiskey on his own tongue and had tasted the same on Dean’s.  He was feeling foggy in the head and more relaxed than normal.    
   
They headed down a floor, neither knowing where they were going.  
   
“This place is amazing,” Castiel whispered.  
   
“It’s got kind of a creepy vibe though,” Dean whispered back, gripping Cas’ hand a bit tighter.    
   
They passed a beautiful set of stairs that led down into a huge foyer with a marble table in the center and a huge bouquet of flowers sitting atop it.  
   
Castiel started to wonder what sort of hotel this was.  He did not see a reception desk, but he didn’t much care either.  They passed the steps, continuing down a hall, looking for a private place to stop and make out.  
   
As they turned up another hall, really starting to feel lost, they heard voices coming their way.  
   
“Quick!” Dean whispered, pulling Cas into a room, tucking the pair behind a large door and two big planters.  Dean crowded Cas against the wall, listening as several people walked by.  
   
“Shoulda known better than ta leave Garth in charge of them,” a woman’s voice said.  
   
Cas looked up into the shadowed face of Dean and held a finger up to his lips to be quiet.  Dean nodded minutely, pressing even closer as a woman entered the room they were in, glancing around.  
   
“I know, but someone had to be down here to figure out what the hell happened,” the woman said to the other in answer.  She pulled the door shut, leaving the pair semi exposed to the room.  The door opened again, and a hand reached in to turn the lights off.  
   
The door shut with a click.  
   
Cas and Dean let out a sigh of relief.    
   
Dean backed up half a step.  “I think we just got locked into...” he peered around the foliage blocking them, “a lounge or a music room.”  
   
Cas followed him into the middle of the room.  A piano sat empty and wide open, inviting his hands to play.  Chairs sat here and there in twos and threes, making quiet areas to sit and chat.  Other instruments sat around for easy playing.  
   
A fireplace stood empty and lonely at one end of the room.  Dean approached it curiously.  “Sweet!” He whispered loudly.  “It’s gas!”  He lifted a switch and watched as flames whooshed into life, making the room transform from forlorn to romantic.  
   
Castiel looked around the room at the instruments, touching them gently.  The chord of a guitar played, making them both jump at the bold sound in the silence.  Dean jumped again as voices came near the door.  He turned the fireplace off and was immediately pressed into the wall by Cas with a stern grip on his arm and a hand clamped over his mouth.  
   
Both of their eyes darted to the door as it opened again.  Blocked by only a hutch, they were much more likely to be caught this time.  
   
But luck was in their favor.  
   
The door shut tight again.  
   
They listened as footsteps continued up the hall.  Cas lowered his hand from Dean’s mouth with a look of understanding to stay quiet.  
   
Dean, leaning against the wall, feet spread and one hand flat against the wall while the other clutched the bottle of whiskey to his chest, looked more delectable than ever.  The corner of Castiel’s mouth tipped in the slightest of smiles.  
   
Dean’s mouth parted as his chest calmed its erratic breathing from hiding so quickly.  
   
He was beautiful.  
   
Castiel took the bottle from him, sitting it on a nearby table, their stare never breaking.  They were the same height, since Dean was sprawled against the wall so entranced with every move Cas made.  Castiel leaned in, ghosting his lips along Dean’s neck.  He grinned as Dean’s breathing picked up again and his hips tipped forward, seeking Castiel’s touch.    
   
Castiel felt his own breath catch as his palms landed possessively against the man’s bare chest.  His thumbs swept over his nipples and the man he had pinned against the wall let loose a sound between a moan and a whimper.    
   
Castiel knew he should be concerned about where he was and who he was with, but he just couldn’t care.  He felt an animalistic need to have this very willing body in his hands.  
   
He drug his stubbled chin over the man’s bare shoulder, getting the squirm he desired.  He felt the man grip his hips and let out a pant as his lips barely touched his ear.  
   
“I want to fuck you.”  
   
The man turned, lit with desire, and Castiel took his mouth by storm, kissing him so hard their teeth clashed, making the man whimper out-right.  
   
Castiel planted a hand in the middle of his chest, pinning him to the wall as he leaned back for air.  And just to look at him again.  
   
“Be quiet,” Cas ordered.  
   
Dean nodded with another gasp, eyes alight with passion.  “What should we do?  What do I do?” Dean whispered.  As if he just remembered, his hand flew down to his pocket, pulling out the bottle, offering it to Cas with wide eyes.  
   
Castiel took it with a hungry grin.  “Is that what you want?  You want me inside you?”  
   
Dean nodded, biting his lip, letting it slide back out wet and slightly swollen.  
   
Castiel leaned forward again, gripping his cock at the same instant their lips pressed together.  The sounds this man made were driving him crazy.  Dean.  That was his name.  Dean.  
   
“Is that what you want, Dean?”  Castiel slid his hands inside his swim trunks, gripping the chilled skin of his ass.  
   
“Please,” he heard him beg.  
   
Need like Castiel never felt before surged inside him.  He pulled his hand out and flipped Dean around, face against the wall and arms up against it in pure open submission.  
   
Castiel directed Dean’s hips away from the wall, pressing his already leaking cock to the part of his ass cheeks, grinding them together.  His head dropped back with a groan as Dean arched his ass harder into him, moaning in return.  
   
Cas pressed himself hard against Dean, flattening him to the wall again, his mouth to Dean’s ear.  “I wanna fuck you so bad.”  
   
“Do it!” Dean cried quietly, needy through gritted teeth, with eyes squeezed tight.  
   
Castiel flipped him around so they were facing each other, getting Dean’s eye contact with all the seriousness in the world.  “Are you sure?”  
   
Dean nodded.  “Cas...please.”  
   
Castiel leaned into him kissing him so thoroughly Dean was practically climbing him to get the friction he was craving.    
   
Castiel pulled back abruptly, turning Dean to face the wall again, arranging him just how he wanted him.  Again, Dean went so willingly.  He slid his hands into Dean’s pockets removing the lube with one hand, cupping a feel of his hard cock with the other.  Dean panted, his head rolling against the wall in bliss.  
   
He sat the lube beside the whiskey on the table.  He kissed a trail of wet kisses up Dean’s spine and around his neck, moaning again at the incredible creature in his hands.  
   
Castiel ran his hands down Dean’s bare sides until he gripped his swim trunks, pulling them down with one fluid sweep.  He nudged Dean to step out of them as he discarded his own.  
   
Castiel lubed his fingers, made quick work of opening Dean.  As his fingers slid and spread, he kissed the skin he could reach and bit little nips, making Dean squirm in pleasure.  His palms were flat against the wall, head dropped, chest heaving, and legs shaking by the time Cas deemed him ready.  
   
“You sure you want me?” Cas grinned into Dean’s ear as he pressed the head of his cock along Dean’s hole, sliding it up and down, loving how Dean arched his back to find it again.  
   
“So bad!  Fuck me, Cas!  Now!”  Dean demanded, finding his target and shoving his hips back, impaling himself, Castiel shoving forward to comply.  He slid all the way inside, stopping only when their bodies met again.  
   
“So beautiful,” Cas murmured, sweeping his hands over Dean’s heaving back.  
   
“Don’t wanna hear I’m beautiful,” Dean growled, “wanna hear how bad you wanna fuck me.”  
   
Castiel’s system went fucking feral.  He gripped Dean’s hips, pounding long, slow strokes into him.  “I want this ass!  Mine!  All mine!  So fucking tight and greedy for me!”  
   
Dean’s legs shook as his hands roved the wall for purchase.  Seeing he wasn’t going to make it, Castiel pulled out, shocking Dean, earning a gasp and cry.  Castiel grabbed the lube and Dean, taking them to the floor, three filthy kisses away and back to the fireplace.  
   
He grabbed a discarded towel and spread it on the floor over the carpet in front of the fireplace, flipping it into life again.  
   
Dean laid down, chest still heaving and eyes searching him for resolution to his state of need.  
   
Castiel got on his knees, between Dean’s legs, lubed, and slid home again, Dean crying out in relief and need.  
   
“So good,” he muttered, pounding as hard as his body would allow, stroking Dean.  
   
“I’m gonna come!” Dean gasped frantic and breathless.  
   
Cas leaned down, kissing him, nipping his bottom lip, and muttering, “So good!  I wanna come inside you!”  
   
“Yeah!” Dean moaned, baring down with one last grip before arching hard, rolling in a silent scream as cum shot between them, slicking Castiel’s hand and driving him over the edge.  He fought the cry he wanted to let loose as he rode through a wave of orgasm that him gasping and shaking.  
   
He pulled out, collapsing half on top of him.  The guy.  His hand ran along his chest until it was captured and kissed.  
   
After several moments of blissful fog, Castiel leaned up on his elbow, looking down at the man he had just fucked.  Was it possible to be in love with a stranger?  He couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he knew his life would never be the same.  
   
Dean slid his hand down the cheek of the man looking down at him.  He didn’t know who he was, but he was damn glad they had met.  Never had anyone captured him so completely.  The moment felt incredibly intimate for a quick bang hook-up at a party.  They had been at a party, right?  He was too tired to care.  He closed his eyes, pulling the man down to lay with him.    
   
Just for a moment.  
   
He was so, so tired.  
   
And happy.  
   
They curled together on the floor, the guy finding a blanket to cover them.  
   
As he got comfortable on the floor, the fire crackling happily, Dean wondered just where the hell he was and how he had gotten here. He could feel his memories slipping away. He cleared his throat gently, staring up at the coffered ceiling in the large room.

“My,” he whispered tentatively. The man with him did not stir. “My name is...” names and memories swirled and slipped from his mind. “My, my name is Dean. Dean Wi...” he searched his memories again. He blinked slower and slower as he struggled to stay awake. “My name is...”

Dean was pretty sure he should be more worried. Pretty sure he had to go somewhere, do something.  He just needed to close his eyes for a moment and feel the incredible warmth of the man in his arms.  
   
   
 


	6. Empty, Blank, and Void

Castiel had learned several things.

He just couldn’t remember any of them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the eight effected family members sleeping, the others are left to keep them safe, figure out who had attacked Kripke Manor, and how the hell to fix it.  
>  

Chapter 7:  Hunters, Friends, and An Old Enemy  
   
   
Jody slumped into the chair at the end of the dining room table.  
   
Gabe wandered over to the lion throne, touching it blankly.  “This is cool,” he mumbled.  
   
Jody rolled her eyes.  It would have been funny if it wasn’t so devastating to see the Winchesters and their friends wandering around like zombies.  
   
She had arrived at Kripke Manor, their safe-haven from monsters, to find Ellen and Bobby in the reference room trying to figure out what the hell to do.  
   
Garth had been left in charge of the absent-minded lot.  She could only theorize whose bright idea that was.  She didn’t ask and didn’t want to know who put him in charge.  
   
Needless to say, he hadn’t been with them for more than an hour and a half when two of them went missing.  Luckily Bobby knew how to track them down quickly.  All they had to do was ask Buddy to find them.  
   
He really was a ridiculously smart dog.  
   
That was when she had the illustrious pleasure of rousing the pair of them from under a mess of towels and a blanket.    
   
Of course they were naked.  
   
Of course they had been having sex.  
   
She never knew such virile men in all her life.  And that was putting it politely.  
   
Luckily, the pair put their trunks on quickly and complied with her strict orders to go with her back to their section of the house and go to sleep on couches in Gabe and Sam’s living room.  Garth already had put (a very willing) Gabe and Sam to bed in their bedroom, and Charlie and Benny had passed out in the living room.  
   
Jody had a call out to some of the hunters she worked with.  Father Murphy came early, unable to find anything amiss.  Whatever prayers and spells he tried on them had no effect.  
   
Lee had arrived, irritable and worried.  Krissy was sleeping and gave no inclinations of getting up, but the protective father watched over her like a hawk. He slept on the floor of Grace’s room, blocking the door.    
   
When late morning crept in, Jody sent Bess and Garth home with the kids.  She didn’t envy them.  Eric, Jack, and Grace were used to the constant attention their parents managed to give them.  They wanted their daddies.    
   
When all eight were awake, they were little more than drones.  They got up and dressed with little direction, but aside from Dean and Sam knowing each other and Gabe and Cas knowing each other, there was little recognition of anything.  
   
It was past lunch time now and all eight effected by the box were corralled into the dining room, sitting around the table like zombies.  They were no longer speaking, worrying, or showing emotion of any kind, aside from a stray moment of lucidity here and there.  
   
Buddy lay between Dean and Cas, whining every now and then.  
   
“This is so weird,” Jody said, looking around at their blank faces.    
   
“You tellin’ me.  Thought ‘weird’ was your calling card,” Bobby said.  “Dean with no fight in ‘im.  Gabe not crackin’ a joke!”  Dean and Gabe looked up at him then settled back to sitting there blankly.  “This sucks.”  
   
Jody nodded.  Lee and Ellen came into the room.  “Alright, let’s herd them into the reference room.”  He took Krissy by the hand as the others got up and started to follow him.  
   
Bobby sighed.  “You could at least push yer chairs in,” he muttered jokingly, as he pushed the first chair back to the table.  
   
They watched as all eight of them stopped, turned, and came back to the table to push their chairs in.  
   
“Huh,” Bobby observed.  “They follow directions real good.”  
   
“Maybe that was the point,” Lee added, taking Krissy’s offered hand as she came back to him.  “Then someone could come in here and do whatever they wanted.”  
   
“So, you don’t think this has to do with your shapeshifter in the basement?” Jody asked.  
   
“I’m tellin’ ya, no one knows that shifter is here but us,” Lee assured her.  “I was so careful bringing him here.”  
   
Ellen crossed her arms over her chest, watching them all.  “So, if it isn’t the shifter...a witch?”  
   
“Crowley,” Bobby muttered, looking mutinous.  
   
“Crowley wouldn’t hurt these boys,” Ellen argued.  “He’s family.  Has been for years!”  
   
“Yeah, well his mother isn’t family.  Not to us.”  
   
Jody, Ellen, and Lee gave Bobby furtive looks.    
   
Something in Jody’s demeanor quieted to a heavy weight as she stared at Bobby.  “What are you saying, Bobby?”  
   
Bobby rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the rest of his family and friends.  “Well...balls!”  
   
“Bobby Singer, what are you hiding?” Ellen demanded.  
   
“I wasn’t really hiding it, per se.  I just kinda forgot about it really.  Back when the manor was at its most haunted, we got help from Crowley.  And his mother.”  
   
Jody sat back, watching him carefully.  “I think you did mention that at one time.  I figured you meant with sage and simple magic stuff.”  
   
“Oh no,” Bobby admitted.  “Crowley knows his spells.  He’s a witch.  But he saved our hides, so we protected him.  And his mother...well, she’s a real piece of work.”  
   
“Robert Steven Singer,” Ellen demanded, “how did you never tell me this?”  
   
Bobby ducked his head a bit.  “It never came up.  Crowley never gave us any reason to be suspicious, so we let him be.  He was glad to get out from under his mother’s web.  And as far as Rowena goes -”  
   
“Rowena?!” Jody gasped.  “Crowley’s mother is Rowena?!  She’s one of, if not THE, most powerful witches in the WORLD!”  
   
“I wasn’t keepin’ it secret!” Bobby yelled back.  “I just...forgot about it!”  
   
“She is very powerful!  Powerful enough to make something like the box that is killing them!”  
   
“Does she know about this place?”  Ellen asked.  
   
Bobby nodded.  “She helped us get rid of Lucifer and the cage.”  
   
Jody stared at him with shock.  “And you never thought to mention that?  You said Crowley helped you!”  
   
“He did!  And his mother.”  
   
Jody rolled her eyes.  
   
“Crowley’s a witch?  You knew this, Jody?”  Lee asked, looking pissed.  “You let Krissy live here and you knew?”  
   
“Hey, Crowley has always been team Winchester,” Jody defended.  “I was willing to turn a blind eye because Dean kept track of him for a long time.  He never once crossed any hunters, let alone these guys.” She waved a hand at the line of waiting, blank-faced friends.  
   
Lee huffed.  
   
“It’s no different than how we trust Bess and Garth.  Our grandkids are with them right now,” Bobby shot back, making Lee glare harder.  
   
“You tellin’ me you never once thought a person capable of living with what they are without hurting others?  All monsters are JUST monsters?”  
   
Lee looked away, not answering.  
   
“So, if Rowena knows about Kripke Manor,” Ellen began.  
   
“She was here long before any of us,” Bobby cut in.  “She was here when Lucifer, Lucas, was in his heyday.”  
   
“What?” Ellen asked.  “That’s impossible.  That was...”  
   
“Yeah.  A long time ago,” Bobby answered.  “She wanted away from him.  Away from here.  She got away from us, including Crowley who was beyond pissed, and we haven’t heard hide nor hair of her since.  She might not be who we’re after.”  
   
Jody frowned in thought.    
   
Ellen rounded the table, grabbing a napkin.  She dabbed Sam’s mouth.  “He’s drooling,” she explained softly, looking at all of them.  “We have to do something.  They’re getting worse.”  
   
Jody turned to Bobby.  “It’s time to call Crowley.”  
   
   
   
*****************************************************  
   
   
   
Ellen paced the foyer.  Her stomach twisted in knots.  Her boys were sick.  For all she knew, they could be dying.  Jody, Lee, and Bobby had them in the second-floor Hunter Study.  It was a library of everything the Winchesters had amassed since they found out monsters and ghosts were real.  Hunters from all over had brought books they’d been keeping in storage, tucked under beds, hidden in their homes, to make a collection all hunters could use.  While she loved The Roadhouse, her knowledge and ability to aid hunters had become a passion.  She had even been on a few hunts.  It was messy business.  It was brutal business.  But it was now their family’s business.    
   
Whoever was attacking them was going to pay.  
   
The front door opened.  She stopped, watching as Jo came in with Crowley.  
   
“Hello, Ellen.”  
   
“Crowley,” she managed tightly.  
   
She led the way after Jo locked the door.  The manor was eerily quiet, their footsteps echoing along the hallway as they passed the rooms where wedding parties prepared, the guest room, and solarium.  
   
Jody placed her palm on the screen next to the locked door that kept the wedding business separated from the hunter section at the back of the wing on the first floor.  It unlocked and she held it for Jo and Crowley to pass through.    
   
They went around the corner, passing the (now) locked storage rooms, and went up the steps.  
   
The back of the second-floor wing was where hunter rooms were, a medical room, and the large hunter study.  This was the section of the manor where hunters could stay.  Some stayed only long enough to crash for four hours of sleep, others stayed for weeks to figure out a case, catch a new case, or just to rest.  The medical ward had been added off the study.  Jo and another hunter, Alex, were called in for the serious cases that Dean and Sam couldn’t stitch up themselves.  
   
They went into the study, Ellen watching Crowley closely.  
   
The study was lined with bookshelves.  Four tables sat in the center, each with their own Tiffany lamp at their center for a reading light.  
   
Crowley crossed the hardwood floor, kneeling at Dean’s side, staring up at him.  “Dean.”  
   
Dean looked at him blankly.  
   
Crowley’s eyes darted all over Dean’s face.  “Who am I?”  
   
Dean stared blankly.  
   
Buddy came up to Crowley, rutting his nose under Crowley’s arm and whined.  Crowley lifted his arm, petting the dog’s head.  “I know, old boy.  I’ll see what I can do.”  
   
Eyes back on Dean, he stood.  “Where’s the cursed object?”  
   
Bobby stepped forward with a towel in his hands.  “I wouldn’t look at it too close.  They kept wantin’ me ta look at it.”  
   
Crowley nodded, noticing how all eight of them turned to stare at the towel, as if it were a beacon.  
   
He crossed the room to a leather sofa between two shelves and unwrapped the towel.  Barely looking toward it, he snapped a picture with his phone.  
   
He covered it up and looked at his phone.  “Hm.  I haven’t seen that in years.”  
   
“You’ve seen it before?” Jody asked testily, no longer such a Crowley fan.  
   
“I have.”  Crowley tucked the phone away, picked up the towel and put it back in the curse box sitting next to Bobby.  “That needs locking away.”  
   
“If we destroy it, will it fix them?” Bobby asked.  
   
“No.”  Crowley stared around at the silent lot.  “This box was made by my mother.  It used to be in one of our parlors in a box made of obscurum glass.”  

“What glass?” Bobby asked.

“Obscurum. It’s glass with spellwork to obscure what you’re looking at,” Crowley explained. “So you could see it. But the box couldn’t curse you.” He huffed at the need to explain.

“You got knowledge of all things rotten?” Jody quipped, short tempered and extremely untrusting of the man now.

Crowley smirked. “You grow up around these things. It’s best you know why not to touch them. It helps one survive.” He winked at Jody, getting a lowered chin and a glare in return.

He pulled his phone out, looking at the picture again.  “Mother called it the forget-me box. It’s made with cursed poppies and spell-work to make it addictive with a need to share it with whomever the giver decided.”  
   
“So the Winchesters were the target,” Jody surmised.  
   
Ellen looked at the others sitting with silent stares.  “And their family.”  
   
“So, Rowena is after the manor,” Jody said coldly.  
   
Crowley frowned.  “Mother used the box as payment for some sort of deal with a vampire.  It was...at least fifty years ago.  I’ve no idea who might have had it since.”  
   
“Great,” Jo said, exchanging a look with Lee.  “Vampires.”  
   
Jody sighed.  
   
Dean, Sam, Gabe, and Castiel’s watches chimed with alerts.  
   
Bobby stepped over to Sam, turning his arm so he could see his watch.  “There’s someone at the back door.”  
   
“Who?” Jody asked.  
   
Bobby shrugged.  “I’ve never seen her before.”  
   
Ellen glanced at the screen, but the woman was looking down at her own watch.  “I don’t know her either.”  
   
Jody came over quickly to look at the security screen linked to Sam’s watch.  She stood up, eyebrows shooting up in surprise.  “Bela!”  
   
“Who?” Ellen, Jody, Crowley, and Bobby asked.  
   
“Bela Talbot!” Jody said louder.  “She’s a thief.  A black-market specialist.  I’ve crossed paths with her before!”  
   
“So have I,” Lee added.  “Consider her armed, smarter-than-you, and extremely dangerous.”  
   
“I bet she’s the one behind this,” Jody surmised. “She specializes in cursed objects.” Her eyes lifted to the room at large. “And what a mother-load of a score for her to get access to Kripke Manor.”

“So...” Bobby looked around at them, “how we gonna play this?”  
   
   
************************************************************  
   
   
Sam answered the door.  All protocol she had observed with previous back door clientele seemed to have gone by the wayside.  And Sam wore the slack-jawed look she had been counting on.  
   
“Hello, Sam,” Bela smiled.  
   
He stepped back, letting her in.  
   
At last.  Kripke Manor.  The fabled hunter haven.  Her eyes took in the room she stepped into.  Well, it certainly was not the posh cigar-lounge she had expected.  Rather, it looked more like a work room in a downtown shop.  Certainly, the woodwork was lovely, the floors gleamed, but air of a break room of sorts was more the feel.  From what she had quickly observed of the foyer upon her entry the day before, the mansion had promise.  It just was not this room.  
   
“And how are you feeling, Sam?” She asked, studying the tall man closely.  It really was too bad she couldn’t have tried to seduce him or his brother.  But even forgetful spells didn’t change a man’s proclivities.  
   
Sam stared at her, a bit of drool collecting at the corner of his mouth.  She needed to work quickly.  By nightfall, the effected would be dead or dying as their brain synapses slowed and finally stopped altogether.  
   
“Right, then,” she grinned.  “Where are the others?  Surely you shared your nice little box I gave you.”  
   
Sam shuffled through the room to a set of steps.  She followed him, noting the brass labels on the wooden doors.  ‘Storage’, ‘Supplies’, ‘Weapons’.  Nice of them to label the place for her.  She tried the knob on the one at the foot of the steps labeled ‘Storage’.  It was locked.  She grinned.  With Sam and the others at her beck and call, this was going to be so much easier than had she tried to break in.  She followed him up the beautifully refinished stairs to the second-floor.  
   
Sam turned down a short hall and walked into a grand study.  A library.  This room was much more her taste.  All the rich charm of a cigar-lounge made her grin anew.  
   
Sitting at tables in the room were seven others.  Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel, she recognized.  She studied the others a little more closely.  Luckily, she was no novice.  She recognized them.  
   
“How quaint,” she grinned.  “Your help is your family?”  She laughed.  Had she known they had so many weak spots to choose from, she could have taken some other more nefarious routes to the same end.  “Charlie, isn’t it?”  The red-head turned to her blankly.  
   
“Charlie, be a good lass and collect any books that look worth some money.”  
   
Charlie stared at her for a moment, then got up and went to the nearest shelf, pulling out three leather bound tombs that did look promising.  
   
“Rufus, I believe,” she said to the older gentleman.  “Collect all the gold and silver and place it in the foyer.”  
   
Rufus left without a word.  
   
Lovely.  
   
A young woman sat at the next table.  “I don’t know you.  But I have seen you come and go.  What’s your name, dear?”  
   
“Krissy,” Krissy said soft and flat.    
   
“Krissy.”  She stared at the girl for a moment.  The mole under her left eye stirred a memory.  “Is your father a hunter?”  
   
“Yes,” Krissy answered.  
   
“Mm.  Lee Chambers.  We have met.”  She eyed the girl, wondering just how many other hunters had come to visit.  Perhaps she should have surveyed the house last night to be sure no other hunters had come.  “Is your father here?”  
   
“He left,” she said, eyes drooping sleepily.  
   
“Good,” she nodded.  She’d had no idea the Winchesters would consider this many people family.  She wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew.  
   
“Go collect paintings. Sit them carefully by the front door.”  She watched as the girl left.  
   
She turned to another worker she recognized from the contracting business page on the internet.  “Benjamin.”  
   
His blue eyes met hers.  
   
“Bring me information on hunters.  Download everything you have and bring it to me.  Only me.”  
   
Benny nodded, heading for a door in the middle of the left side of the room.  She leaned over a bit, peeking inside.  It looked like an infirmary.  
   
She looked at the handsome faces of the Winchesters.  Three sat at tables, Sam still stood, awaiting her orders.  “Where are your children?”  
   
They all blinked at her.  
   
She wondered idly if there were crying toddlers neglected in a room somewhere.  
   
“Where are your dogs?” She tried again.  
   
Again, they stared.  
   
Not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, she moved on to the  crux of her plan.  “Take me to the safe.”  
   
Sam stared at her blankly.  
   
“Give me your keys,” she said, not realizing their not remembering where they were would really slow her down.  
   
Sam felt his pockets, pulling out a set of keys.  He handed them to her, drooling.  
   
“Wipe your mouth, Sam.”  She took a deep breath, “Come along, lads.  Time to pack up the weapons.”  
   
Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel got up, following Sam as he followed her.    
   
She would have to search all the rooms to find all the curse boxes -.  Ah.  A thought struck her.  She turned to Sam again.  “Take me to the Forget-Me box.  I want to see it.”  
   
A spark of recognition fizzled in his brown eyes.  She smiled as he headed for the stairs again.  Yes, perhaps they would have attempted to lock it away with other dangerous items.  All of which she would have these men load into her awaiting moving truck at the front door.  
   
Back to the first floor, Sam stood at the door next to the foot of the steps marked ‘Storage’.  
   
Lovely.  
   
She tried multiple keys before finding the correct one.  It would have been quicker to pick the lock.  Finally unlocking the door, she stepped into the neatly organized storage room.  
   
This room also had the feel of being remodeled.  Sam passed her, going to another door and waited.  
   
He was like having a 6’4” pointer.  
   
She pulled out a hair pin and picked the lock.  Too bad none of them could appreciate her style.  She slid the two pins, finding the teeth of the lock inside, popping them into place, and the lock clicked.  
   
She grinned again, opening the door.  
   
She stepped back, letting Sam go first.  She marveled at the stone walls and gallant basement stairs.  “They really don’t make them like they used to,” she noted wistfully.  
   
Dean, Castiel, and Gabriel followed her like the good puppies they were.    
   
She glanced around, fascinated with all the antique devices and machinery.  The macabre clientele that she knew would love some of the old things she saw collecting dust.  
   
What a waste.  But for her, she could hear the money rolling in already.  
   
She began to notice runes, sigils, and spell-work carved into the doorways and walls in the next room, which was full of more antiquities.  
   
She glanced ahead, seeing Sam turn into a room.  As she came into the next room, she realized it was lined with cells.  It was dark and hard to see, but her eyes went wide at the stack of curse boxes along the wall inside one of the cells.  
   
“It’s a trap!” Someone called from further down the room.  She froze at the entrance of the cell.  Sam stopped in front of the curse boxes, pulling one off the shelf.  
   
“They’re gonna get you!” The voice called again.  
   
She reached for her gun.  Before she could get it, she was bodily slammed into the bars in front of her, the gun taken from her.  She fought back, realizing her folly too late.  She hit and kicked and fought, screaming for them to let her go, but there were too many of them.  As soon as she loosened one arm, another person had it.  Within a matter of moments, she was shackled to the stone wall opposite all the curse boxes.  
   
“Sam, Dean, stop them!” She yelled.  
   
“That’s enough outta you,” Ellen said, cramming a rag into her mouth as Bobby came behind her with a strip of duct tape that he none-to-nicely pressed over her mouth.  
   
Sam and Dean began shoving them away, Dean actually getting a grip on the tape, but was stopped by Bobby.  
   
“Sam.  Dean.  No.”  
   
The boys stopped, turning to him like toddlers.  
   
Bobby sighed, looking at them sadly.  “No, boys,” he said much more kindly.  
   
Bela’s eyes grew wide as lights came on and she could see all the hunters that were there.  Bobby, Ellen, Jody, Lee, Jo, and another man she didn’t know.  All her research to take this heist didn’t do her a damn bit of good, other than putting faces with names.  
   
“Bela Talbot,” Jody said, stepping up to her with all the authority of a police officer.  “What the hell are you doing here?”  
   
Well, it wasn’t like she could answer.  And it wasn’t too hard to figure out.  
   
“How dare you attack a hunter,” she went on, venom in her threatening voice.  
   
“You’ve been a pain in the ass for far too long.”  
   
“Your thieving days are over,” Lee said with such finality that Bela wondered if she had finally reached too far.  
   
“I don’t know you,” Bobby growled, “But if my boys ain’t right as rain, you’re gonna wish you were dead.”  
   
She tried to say she could fix them, though she couldn’t.  She tried anyway, desperate to make any move.  Jody finally peeled the duct tape partially off and pulled the rag out of her mouth.  
   
Tongue dry, chest heaving with desperation, she quickly went to work.  “I can fix them!  It’s only temporary!  I only needed the Dominus key!”  She closed her mouth, wishing she had not divulged her true intent of the heist.  “I can heal them!” She assured.  She needed only the slightest chance to slip away and she could escape.  
   
“That’s alright, love,” the man she didn’t know said.  His accent was British with an undertone of Scottish.  “We haven’t been introduced.  I’m Crowley.”  
   
Crowley!  Fergus MacLeod!  Here she was, ten steps away from boxes of treasures that could make her richer than her wildest dreams AND Rowena’s son?!  If she showed up to meet Rowena with the Dominus key AND her son (dead or alive), she would have the blessing of the most powerful witch known to man.  
   
“I can help you,” she said to him.  From what she had heard, Rowena’s son had forsaken his own mother and his witch heritage to side with hunters.  His whereabouts were known only to Rowena, who claimed she couldn’t get to him.  And the entire town was warded with spells protecting him and Kripke Manor from anyone seeking to harm them.  She had a handy talisman that helped protect her from all other charms and spells.  But even she wasn’t brave enough to trust it to handle the power of cursed objects.  They had a will of their own that could worm their way past the talisman.  
   
Crowley grinned slyly.  “I don’t need your help.  And, I don’t need your assistance to fix my friends.  I do however, have somewhere to put you when everyone is done with you.”  He settled back into a smug stance.  
   
Chills ran all over her body.  
   
“What did you need this key for?” Jody cut in.  “The doma-something key.”  
   
“Dominus,” Bela said.  “For his mother.”  She stared at Crowley.  
   
Jody, Ellen, Jo, and Lee turned, giving Crowley suspicious looks.  
   
“He knows,” she lied, trying to distract them.  Perhaps if they squabbled amongst themselves she could think of a way out.  
   
Crowley huffed a laugh.  “Mother,” he spat with disgust.  “She lies.  Regularly. Constantly.  Effortlessly.”  He glanced around at those staring at him.  “It’s true!”  
   
“Why does she want the key?” Jody demanded.  
   
“Haven’t the foggiest,” Crowley shrugged.  “I haven’t spoken to Mother since she left.  But I CAN tell you what the Dominus Key can do.”  
   
“Go on,” Bobby said flatly, watching Bela like a hawk.  
   
“The bearer of said key, Dominus, Latin for Master, simply puts the key into the lock of a door and the house or business and everything in it becomes theirs.  They become the master of the house.”  
   
“And the down side?” Jo asked.  
   
Crowley frowned.  “Over time, the master becomes obsessed with the home until all they can do is walk its corridors and feel the very walls and windows.  Eventually they starve to death from obsession and become a poltergeist, haunting the home.”  
   
“And Rowena wants to risk that?” Ellen asked, obviously not buying it.  
   
“I didn’t ask the details of her plan,” Bela said sharply.  She had already tried every trick she could think of to twist and turn her way out of the shackles on her wrists, let alone the ones on her ankles.  
   
She was trapped.  
   
“Then you aren’t any more use to us,” Jody said, shoving the rag back in her mouth and pressing the tape over her mouth again.  
   
She wasn’t getting out of this.  
   
She stared around at the hunters, knowing her fate lay in their hands.    
   
   
********************************************************  
   
   
With Bela gagged and shackled in the cell and two hunters watching her at all times, Crowley was free to undo the curse of the Forget-Me box.    
   
He had all eight gathered in the safari dining room, sitting around the large table.  Jody and Bobby were watching every move he made.  
   
Sam, Castiel, and Gabriel were slumped over onto the table, looking near death.  The others weren’t far behind in their stupors.  He ground fresh sage, rosemary, ginkgo, and gotu kola in a marble pestle.  
   
“Anyone care to get a bit of blood from each of them,” Crowley said.  “Time is of the essence.”  
   
Bobby unhappily pulled out a pocket knife, stepping up to Sam.  
   
“Ah, ah, ah,” Crowley interrupted, stopping his grinding to hand Bobby a copper dagger.  
   
Bobby looked like he was going to ask, but didn’t, instead getting to work.  Crowley was glad.  He did not feel like explaining why he just so happened to have a copper dagger blessed under a flower moon by a faerie priestess in a clear meadow.  These were the sort of things you procured when your own mother kept trinkets around that could kill you when the mood struck her.    
   
Bobby took the cauldron Crowley had already started.  In it was oak wood for wisdom, red wood for longevity, and a willow branch for memory.  Bobby went one by one, cutting their hands to let a few drops of blood drip into the pile of wood.  
   
By the time they all had bled into it, it was back in front of Crowley.  He dumped the herbs into it and poured granulated Mercury Retrograde crystal over all of it.  “And last, but not least, a dash of Malachite, finely crushed, and one clear crystal.”  He added the last two and handed the pot to Ellen.  “Just add water until the wood is submerged then boil for ten minutes.”  
   
Ellen gave him a speculative glance, but she too asked no questions.  
   
He looked around at Bobby and Jody.  “Perks of growing up coven style.”  
   
“Yeah, I’m a paranoid bastard too,” Bobby deadpanned.

   
Jo brought a handful of syringes, laying them on the table.  Crowley cooled the brew with a chilling spell after boiling.  He rarely used his magic anymore.  It felt tiring and left him sore, like running a marathon with no working up to it.  
   
He drew the first vial, handing it to Jo.  She injected Sam.  Bobby came to stand between him and Dean. He lifted Sam’s head, wiping hair out of his face, talking softly to him.  
   
Crowley continued drawing syringes as Jo injected them one by one.  Jody rubbed and coaxed Cas and Gabe to wake as Lee focused on his daughter and Rufus.  Crowley  stayed at Benny’s side while Jo stopped to comfort Charlie.  
   
“It isn’t working,” Lee whispered, frightened for his daughter.  
   
“It is,” Crowley encouraged, checking Benny’s pupillary reaction.  “Come on Benny.  Wake up.  Come back to us.  He rubbed the man’s shoulder to invigorate him and jostle him into attention.  
   
Benny began to show signs of emotion, frowning, squinting, rubbing his eyes.  He took a deep breath, meeting Crowley’s eyes.  “Where am I?”  It came out scratchy and deep and he took another deep breath as Crowley rubbed a calming hand up and down his back.  
   
“You’re doing very well, Benny,” Crowley coaxed.  
   
Krissy began taking deep breaths along with Dean.  
   
Rufus coughed and moved side to side in his seat.    
   
Cas took a deep breath, looking around a bit wild-eyed.  
   
“It’s okay,” Jody soothed, rubbing his back.  He looked at her in confusion but didn’t pull away.  
   
“Dad?” Krissy mumbled.  
   
“Yeah, Krissy!  It’s me!” He hugged her, in tears from the simple recognition.  
   
“What the hell happened,” Dean groaned, leaning forward, rubbing his head.  
   
“Dean, do you remember me?” Crowley asked.  
   
Dean dropped his hands to the table, squinting at his friend.  “Yes.  My neighbor.”  He frowned a bit harder.  “Crowley.”  
   
“Good.  Good, Squirrel.  Very good.”  
   
“What happened?” Rufus asked.  
   
“You were given a cursed object,” Jody explained.  “It made you all forget everything.”  
   
Dean turned to the insistent dog beside him.  “Hey, Buddy!”  He petted the dog’s head with one hand as he reached for Castiel’s arm.  “Cas?”  
   
Cas frowned, looking like his head hurt.  
   
Gabe sat up, taking a deep breath.  “What the fuck?  Did we have a party?”  
   
Sam groaned.  
   
“Come on Sam,” Bobby coaxed.  “Get up, son.”    
   
Dean reached over to shake his arm gently.  “Sammy.”  
   
Sam sat up with slow blinks and gasping for breath.  
   
“That’s it!” Bobby coaxed, fighting back tears.  “Deep breaths, take it easy!”  
   
“Sam?” Gabe said weakly, gripping his other arm.  
   
“M good,” Sam gasped again, blinking more quickly.  
   
“Fuck,” Dean groaned, hands in his own hair, glancing around the room.  
   
“I couldn’t remember my own name,” Benny said, still blinking around in disbelief.  
   
“I forgot I was married,” Castiel added.  
   
“I couldn’t figure out where the hell I was,” Krissy sighed.  
   
“I forgot my own dog!  My kids!” Castiel said in shock, petting Buddy, who was wagging his tail again.  
   
“Grace,” Sam gasped, trying to stand.  
   
“She’s fine,” Bobby said, pushing him back to his chair easily.  “She’s with Bess and Garth.  I’m sure she’s ready to see you though.”  
   
“I remember holding her and not knowing who she was!” Sam said in shock.  
   
“Oh, shit.”  Dean sat back, exchanging a haunted look with Cas.  
   
“We’ll have them brought home,” Jo placated, so relieved the potion had worked.  
   
Charlie leaned over, resting her head on Rufus’ shoulder.  “I thought I was losing my mind.  And then...I just didn’t care!”  
   
Rufus wrapped an arm around her.  “It’s all like a bad dream!”  
   
“It was that box,” Sam said, looking at his empty hand.  “I...some lady gave it to me.  I thought she was working for Joshua, the florist.”  
   
“That was Bela Talbot,” Jody explained.  “She’s shackled in the basement.  With the shapeshifter Charlie and Benny almost let go.”  
   
Charlie and Benny exchanged a look of shocked memory.    
   
“Ah shit,” Rufus swore, shaking his head with a guilty look.  He sat up more seriously, turning to Cas.  “I mighta tore up the yard with the back-hoe.”  He looked at Benny.  “You might wanna fix that.”  
   
“Damn,” Benny almost laughed.  
   
“Oh shit!” Dean said in sudden shock.  “Kevin!”  
   
The other seven nodded.  
   
“Kevin was affected too?” Jody asked.  
   
“Yeah,” Cas admitted.  “Dammit.”  
   
“Anyone else not at this table?” Bobby asked.  
   
“No.  I tried to get you to look at it,” Dean answered.  “Good thing you’re a stubborn goat.”  
   
The pair exchanged smirks.  
   
“Hi, glad ta meet ya, Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard.”    
   
   
   
***********************************************************  
   
   
   
“Daddy!” Jack and Eric called, running across the foyer.  Dean and Cas sank to their knees, scooping them up in huge hugs.  Dean fought back tears as he kissed Eric’s head, holding him tight.    
   
“Jack, I missed you!” Cas cried openly, kissing him.  Both men moved to hold both boys at the same time in a family hug.  
   
“Grace!” Sam and Gabe yelled as she toddled across the foyer in her pink jumper, carrying a plushie cookie.  
   
“Daddy!” She called loud, yet so tiny.  
   
Gabe picked her up, turning into Sam’s chest as the three put their heads together for a hug.  
   
There was a lot of hugging.    
   
The door opened again, allowing one very frazzled looking  Kevin inside.  He froze, slammed the door shut and stared at all of them.  
   
“I need answers!” Kevin yelled.  “My mom’s ready to have me committed!  She says I’m having a nervous breakdown because first I came home and went to bed while rambling about a physics test.  Then!  Then I woke up comatose.”  
   
“Kevin,” Cas attempted to explain.  
   
“THEN!  I came to, freaking out about ghosts and, and, and basement dungeons, and, and losing my mind!  What the hell happened to me!”  
   
Jo came in the door behind him, arms crossing over her chest.  “I found him at the hospital.  Damn, I thought my mom was a helicopter parent.”  
   
“Mrs. Tran can be quite...thorough,” Sam grinned guiltily.  
   
“No shit.  I gave him the injection and no matter how quick I answered him, he kept yapping about things he remembered,” Jo explained.  
   
“Kevin,” Dean said more sharply, getting through to Kevin’s darting eyes and fearful stance.  “We were all exposed to a toxic...substance.”  Dean nodded, as if, yes, that made perfect sense.  
   
“Do you think I’m an IDIOT?” Kevin yelled.    
   
“Dude!  Calm down!” Gabe scoffed.  “How ‘bout, thanks for saving my life Jo and Crowley!”  
   
Kevin stopped, looking at Gabe.  
   
“We got a cursed box.  It’s like getting roofied.”  
   
Kevin stared.  
   
“It was a witch,” Dean clarified, knowing the kid needed to hear it said aloud.  
   
“I think it’s time Kevin got a promotion,” Castiel suggested, Eric on one hip as he crossed the foyer and put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder.  “Perhaps something outside of the kitchen.”  
   
Kevin nodded.  “I would like that.”  
   
Castiel nodded with a grin.  
   
“And monsters are real,” Kevin stated, only a waver of frantic emotion left in his voice.  
   
Castiel exchanged a glance with Dean, Sam, and Gabe.  He looked back down at Kevin.  “And monsters are real.”  
   
Kevin’s shoulders relaxed.  
   
“Come on, Kevin,” Krissy grinned.  “I’ll fill you in.”  The pair left for the hunter section of the manor.    
   
   
“No pretty girl ever took me by the hand to tell me monsters were real,” Rufus bitched.  
   
“No pretty girl ever took you anywhere,” Bobby teased.  
   
“Is Bela going to be stopped?” Gabe asked.  
   
“Absolutely,” Crowley assured easily.  “She’ll be put away for her crimes.”  
   
“Good,” Gabe sighed.  “I have a lion to feed.”    
   
Sam grinned at him warmly, taking Grace.  “You wanna go feed the kitty?”  
   
“Loki!” She cheered.  “Cookie.”  
   
Sam made a frowning face.  “Do lions eat cookies?”  
   
“No!” She shook her head, shoulders and half her body, laughing.  
   
“Nooo!” Sam laughed, holding her high in the air.  “They eat Grace nuggets!”  
   
“Noooo!” Grace laughed so hard all of them were grinning.  
   
“You don’t wanna address your complaints with this bitch that almost killed us all?” Dean asked his brother.  
   
Sam grinned, holding his daughter snugly.  “No.  I’m gonna bow out on this one.  I’m just gonna...do the dad thing.”  
   
“Me too,” Gabe added.  
   
“With the lion,” Charlie nodded.  
   
“The very COOL dad thing,” Gabe corrected with an impish grin.  
   
“Mind doing the cool uncle bit while this dad goes and helps take care of business,” Dean laughed.  
   
“OH!  Me! Me!” Charlie cheered, taking Eric.  “Auntie Charlie needs some aunt time!”  
   
“Woofus!” Jack called, reaching out for Rufus.  
   
Rufus broke into a wide, toothy grin.  He took Jack.  “Why am I always suckered inta Loki time,” he teased.  
   
“You love it,” Gabe, Bobby, and Ellen laughed.  
   
As that group left through the front door, the others made their way down to the basement to take care of business.  
   
   
   
Bela glanced at each of them as they gathered around her.  Crowley and Ellen slipped to the back of the cell, while Dean and Jody took the space directly in front of their trouble maker.  Bobby, Lee, Benny, Cas, and Jo filed in around them, some outside the cell looking in.  
   
“She been searched?” Dean asked, staring at her with all the anger he felt.  
   
“Twice,” Jody assured.  “And the cuffs are holding.”  
   
“Time to answer some questions,” Dean said.  
   
Jody removed the tape and pulled out the rag, tossing it to the floor.  
   
“Water, please,” Bela whined pitifully, impressing none of them.  
   
“Why are you in my house?” Dean asked with a sharp edge.  
   
“I just needed an item I heard you have.  I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused!  I didn’t know!”  
   
“You didn’t know, what, exactly,” Jody asked.  “That your curse, once you had gotten your workers out of it, would kill them?”  
   
“I didn’t know!” Bela lied with pleading eyes.  “Please!  Call the police!”  
   
Dean laughed.  “Police!”  His face dropped back to dead serious.  “People like you don’t get police.  People who fight with magic, get magic in return.”  
   
“No!” She gasped, looking at all of them with the first real sign of fear.  
   
“It’s not personal,” Castiel assured.  “Just business.”  
   
“See,” Dean grinned, “you took on the Winchester family.  Kripke Manor.  Our family is...” he glanced around at all those around him and thought of all those in the barn, in town, across the country, that he considered family.  “Well, let’s just say it’s big.”  
   
“How did you find Kripke Manor?” Jody asked.  
   
“Rowena,” Bela explained.  “I had to do it.  She forced me to come here and get the Dominus key for her.”  
   
“And how, pray tell, do you know my mother,” Crowley asked.  
   
“She tracked me down!  She knew I was a good thief and made me do this!”  
   
Dean cleared his throat, holding her gaze as he bit his lip, thinking before he spoke.  “I mighta believed that.  But I remember you asked Benny here to look up information on every hunter.”  
   
Bela licked her lips.    
   
“Just what were you gonna do with that, princess?” Bobby piped in. “Send us Christmas cards?”  
   
She pursed her lips.  
   
“That’s what I thought,” Jody nodded.  “If you don’t have anything else to say, I’ll just let my good friend Crowley work his magic.  Literally.”  
   
“She’s after the house.  Kripke Manor.  She wants the coven to take over.  She said she can even keep the wedding business going.”  
   
“So that’s the real story,” Ellen said tightly.  “Use the thief to get the key, take over Kripke Manor, and what?  No more hunters?”  
   
“There will never not be hunters,” Jody assured.  “But since Kripke Manor, the hunters are stronger than ever.  More organized.  A real threat.”  
   
“Plus,” Crowley added, “her house would be bigger than mine.”  As they turned to look at him, thinking the remark off base, he added with a shrug, “She’s a trifling little witch.”  
   
“Are you sure you don’t know where she is?” Jody asked.  
   
“Trust me, if I did, she’d be on a leash.  It’s where I trust her most.”  
   
Jody looked at Dean.    
   
Dean nodded back, vouching for his friend.    
   
They began filing out of the cell, lining up along the outer bars.  
   
“Don’t do this!  I have things you can use!  I can tell you where there is a whole nest of vampires!” Bela yelled, pulling against the shackles.  
   
Crowley pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.  He unfolded it, holding it up for Bela.  
   
“Read it.”  
   
“Your mother will find you,” Bela said tritely.  
   
“I’m sure she will.  Now read it.”  
   
Bela’s eyes scanned the paper.    
   
“No?” Crowley asked, sounding entirely too excited about the prospect of her refusal.  “Ellen, be a love and fetch the Forget-Me box.”  
   
Ellen pulled the curse box from the shelf.  
   
“No wait!” Bela panicked.  “What will it do?”  
   
“She wants options,” Crowley grinned through the bars at the on-lookers.  He turned back to Bela, still grinning.  “I do appreciate a good negotiator.  Since you like choices, here’re yours.  You can take a looksie at the box you brought us, forget who you are, and die here.  Or, you can recite the lines I gave you, and retire to your own castle.”  
   
She frowned in suspicion.  Who wouldn’t?  
   
Ellen picked up a covered painting from beside some curse boxes, uncovering it.  She held it up, her cool eyes watching Bela.  
   
“Do you know it?” Crowley asked with a smooth grin.  
   
“No,” she said flatly.  
   
“Well, let me introduce you.  It’s right up your alley, truly.”  Crowley waved a hand as if he were Vanna White.  “Painting of a Gothic Castle, artist, unknown, circa 1920’s, oil on canvas, 20x28. Got it from a charming little witch in San Fransisco named Prue.”  
   
“Crowley,” Jody said, shooting him a glare to move on.

“Recite the lines and you live in the castle.  Forever.  Or until it’s destroyed, which, I don’t currently have any plans on destroying it.”    
   
Dean glared at her.  “Choose, bitch.”  
   
Bela’s mouth twisted.  
   
Lee pulled out a gun.  “I say we just shoot her.”  
   
“Easy,” Jody warned.  “She’s human.  A bad one, but still, human.”  
   
Bela’s eyes darted from the painting of the sunset-brown castle.  She read the two lines of Latin aloud.  
   
“Tell Malcolm I said hello,” Crowley grinned.  
   
A cloud of white shot from the painting, lighting Bela’s body in a bright light, taking her into the painting in a flash.  
   
“And that was Bela,” Crowley said, covering the painting.  
   
Ellen stowed the painting on the shelf, then came out of the cell with Crowley.    
   
“Inescapable?” Dean clarified, staring at the painting.  
   
“Inescapable.  There’s been a warlock in there for seventy years.”  
   
“I’m not even gonna ask,” Dean shrugged, coming out of the cell.  
   
The group shared a general sigh of relief.  “Bela was good at what she did.  Don’t beat yourselves up for getting breached,” Jody warned.  
   
Cas and Dean nodded.  
   
“But she came too close,” Dean admitted, putting his arm around Castiel’s shoulder.  
   
Jody nodded.  “It was too close.  Rowena needs finding.”  
   
They all nodded.  
   
“Til you come up with a plan, which, by the way, count me in,” Lee said, “I have a shifter to question.”  He turned to head down to the cell where the shifter was chained up.  
   
Bobby patted Dean’s shoulder.  “Glad you’re alright, boy.”  
   
“Thanks to you,” Dean said, hugging him.  
   
“When you got somethin’, count me in.”  Bobby went to join Lee.  
   
“I’m headin’ to the Roadhouse,” Ellen added, hugging and kissing Dean and Cas, then hugging Benny and Crowley.  “JoAnna Beth, aren’t you supposed to be at work?”  
   
“I was a little busy,” she countered, following her mother toward the stairs.  
   
“I betta get ta work on the yard Rufus tore up,” Benny said with a shake of his head.  “He really did a numba on it.”  
   
Cas, Dean, Jody, and Crowley headed up to the reference room for a drink.  
   
“You know I’m gonna have to go after your mother, right?” Jody said to Crowley.  
   
“Why Jody Mills, are you flirting with me?” Crowley grinned.  
   
Jody gave him a look of pure disbelief.  “You are so damaged.”  
   
“A bit dented but certainly not broken,” he grinned.  “Care to join me for dinner?”  
   
“Oh my God,” she sighed, heading for the stairs.  “Call me in the morning boys.  I need to sleep for a week.”  
   
“I’ll bring dinner up,” Crowley called, all grins.  He turned back to Dean and Cas.  “I think she likes me.”  
   
“I don’t think so,” Cas said gently.  
   
Dean just laughed, pulling out a beer for each of them.  “You go give it the ole college try, Crowley.”  
   
“I will,” he grinned, sitting back with his beer.  
   
“Thanks for saving our asses.  Again,” Dean said seriously.  
   
“Always,” Crowley grinned back.  “Always.”  
   
“I’m ready to just spend a quiet evening with the boys,” Cas said.  
   
“Me too,” Dean added quietly, staring at his husband.  “Man, I can’t believe we forgot who we were.”  
   
Cas nodded.  “Now that I know we’re all okay, I must admit, it was fun chasing you around again.”  
   
“Chasing me?” Dean smirked.  “I was chasing you!”  
   
“Time to hit the road,” Crowley announced, getting up.  
   
“Really?” Cas grinned a little more sly, “who led who into the guest room?”  
   
“That was totally me,” Dean said, taking a drink.  
   
“Good bye!” Crowley called.  
   
“Who picked up who at the bar?” Cas challenged.  
   
“Bye, Crowley!” They both called.  “Love you!” Dean added.  
   
Crowley chuckled, turning to them both.  “Good bye, boys.”  
   
As the door shut and the room grew quiet, Dean and Cas exchanged a look.  
   
“I definitely took you up against that wall,” Cas grinned.  
   
“So competitive, Thursday,” Dean grinned, shaking his head, leaning forward to kiss his husband.  
   
 “I can’t wait to remind Gabriel that he rode in the elevator five times and was so impressed we had one at all!” Castiel laughed at the thought.

Dean shook his head. “Ya know, crisis averted and all, we did have some fun yesterday.”

Cas stared at his husband. “You do realize we had sex three times yesterday.”

Dean grinned. “Yeah we did!” They laughed into another kiss.

 

   
************************************************************  
   
   
As he and Dean walked along the driveway toward the barn to meet up with the others, Castiel had to admit, he had learned a lot of things today.  
   
1\. Rowena needed to be stopped.   
2\. Crowley had no chance of wooing Jody.  
3\. He knew his name.  His husband.  And his children.  For that, he would forever be thankful to his family.  
4\. Castiel knew exactly where Rowena was.  So did Dean.  And so did Crowley.  But that story was for another day.  Today, he wanted to surround himself with those he loved.  
   
 

The End!  
For now :)  
   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys had some fun with this one! It seems SOME of our boys have been up to something with Rowena. But why aren’t they sharing with the class???
> 
> Next Back Door will be about our favorite little witch, Rowena. And just what curiosities lurk in Crowley’s mysterious house.


End file.
